


What happens if Ginny actually gave Harry his 17th birthday present

by Quid_Agis



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Deathly Hallows AU, Depression, Explicit Language, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, I promise there will be fluff just wait for it, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Masturbation, Rape/Non-con Elements, Recreational Drug Use, Slow Burn, Smut, Teen Pregnancy, Torture, Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2019-10-04 17:30:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 11
Words: 36,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17308841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quid_Agis/pseuds/Quid_Agis
Summary: Deathly Hallows AU where Ginny succeeds in giving Harry the birthday present she meant to give him, but little does she realize the implications of making this happy memory for him.Story documents DH from Ginny's POV, as close to canon as possible but with necessary changes.





	1. Summer 1997

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've never posted fanfic before. I've barely even written fanfic before. I've had this idea for a while maybe because I'm a garbage human, but well, I used to be quite a writer and haven't written anything non-academic that I feel fairly good about in maybe 8 years. Here's to nothing.  
> I've also never written smut before so...  
> :) xoxo Quid_Agis

_From the Diary of Ginny Weasley, or what happens if Ginny actually gave Harry his 17th birthday present_

**_______________________**

**_Sunday, 27 July 1997_ **

            I know I haven’t written in a diary since I was eleven, and that time it tried to kill me, but, hell, we’re all in mortal peril now according to Mum’s clock so why not write my most intimate thoughts and feelings into a book again. I’m pretty sure this is a safe one, too, because it’s an extra one Hermione bought at a muggle shop and left here last summer. I don’t think she will care if I use it and I don’t even think she will remember she left it here.

            It’s been a month since I’ve seen him and a month since he called it quits with us. I can’t get my mind off of him. I know he’s been safe because I would have heard if he wasn’t but I just haven’t gotten myself to send him a letter. I don’t even know what I’d say. _Dear Harry, just wanted to let you know that I don’t think we are over yet and I miss you like fucking crazy, can’t get my mind off of you. By the way my mind wanders to you and your body every time I let it. Just yesterday I was feeding the chickens and let my mind wander to that time you fingered me under the tree by the lake and I replay how good your fingers felt inside of me, and then I realize that I’m in my wellies surrounded by chicken shit and my cunt has become so wet that I think I will definitely need to change my panties for the third time today because oh god whenever I think of you my heart skips a beat and my pussy starts dripping… Love, Ginny._ That’s a perfectly normal letter, right?

            He’s supposed to come home tonight. I’m so fucking scared. Almost everyone I love are risking their lives to get him here safe. I need to distract myself, because even if he does by some miracle get here safe, what about Dad or Ron or Bill or Fred or George? Mum’s been triple and quadruple scrubbing down the kitchen to prepare for the wedding, but I know it’s because she’s scared shitless. It’s been about an hour since they all left to get Harry and I don’t know how much more time I can take. I want to know what’s going on. I just want them all to be safe. For him to be safe.

            And if he does make it home I don’t even know what I’ll do with myself. I can hardly think of him without becoming so insatiably horny. I don’t know what I will do if it _is_ him there. I know we’re technically broken up but I don’t believe it. He just has to save the world, is all. Which is so fucking scary. And so fucking hot. I can’t wait I can’t take it any longer.

 

**_Monday, 28 July 1997_ **

            I’ve been up all night I can’t get it out of my mind. When I first saw Harry I thought my heart would leap right out of my chest and a fire ignited that started in my belly and quickly spread right to my clit but I didn’t know just what to do. I couldn’t say anything then because Mum and Hagrid were there and we haven’t gotten time alone because only a few minutes later he was telling us about how he ran into You-Know-Who and then Dad came home with George who lost an ear and now Mad Eye is dead. Lupin gave us all Firewhiskey and since I hadn’t eaten all day and my mind was all crazy and screwed up from everything it just went straight to me. While no one was looking Fred topped off my glass another three or four or maybe five times. I don’t remember. We both needed it. He seemed okay after George got hurt and Mum cleaned him up but I saw when nobody was looking Fred would wordlessly refill his glass with his wand. He must have known that I was hurting too because he kept refilling mine whenever he did his. I don’t know what was going through his head, but I know he must be hurting. He puts on his goofy act all the time, but I can tell when something’s wrong. Maybe he sensed that and needed someone else to drink with. I know he never went up to bed last night because when I came downstairs this morning he was sleeping on the big armchair next to the couch George was on.

            And a few drinks in I couldn’t help but stare at Harry who was staring at the floor and not saying anything. I know he doesn’t want anyone hurt because of him and now Mad Eye and Hedwig are dead and George is hurt and who knows what will become of the rest of us in a few weeks or months. What if he doesn’t come back from his mission to save the world and I’m just the stupid girl who waited for him thinking he could get this done with safely?

            I know what I can do to make his time here worthwhile before he goes on his mission. I decided last night. He’ll be seventeen on Thursday and I still haven’t bought him a present, but then I realized why buy him a present when I could be present and his present? He needs a happy memory before he goes off hunting You-Know-Who and I need a happy memory too to keep me sane before he goes. I still have the potion from the apothecary hiding in the bottom of my school trunk that I was going to use with Dean but we never had the chance. Sure, we jerked each other off plenty of times and I’d blown him in the secret passages, but we never did it. And with Harry, there was never enough time. After the last Quidditch match we escaped to the grounds and snogged a bunch. He sucked my titties while I jerked him off but it was his first time anyone had done that to him and he barely lasted two minutes. And then there was the time he fingered me under the tree by the lake but every other time we were together Ron and Hermione were always around or there would be some stupid third years gossiping by the lake, too close for comfort. We never got to doing much at Hogwarts and I’m afraid if I don’t act now we will never do anything. It’ll be his birthday soon and he’ll know that we’re not over.

 

**_Thursday, 31 July 1997_ **

            He told me after this it’s over and he tried to mean it but I know it’s not over it just can’t be over I’ll pretend it’s not over until we can continue and then we will be together and it’ll be okay. If it’s written down it’ll never be over because I can come back and read it again and again and it’ll be here forever and I won’t forget anything. When Mum and Dad were showing the Delacours around the backyard and the marquis and going over everything for the wedding I invited him to my room. I realized that he was the first boy other than my brothers to come into my room and we were about to do it on the bed I know I wet as a child but it was the perfect time.

            I told him that I didn’t have his birthday present and couldn’t think of what to get him, but wanted to give him a happy memory in case he ran into a beautiful veela when he was off saving the world. He looked so sexy when he smiled at me with that perfectly chiseled chin and looked deep into my eyes and laughed and said that he wouldn’t have time to date on his mission and before I would keep running my mouth out of sheer nerves I just went for it and started kissing him like mad. I used my teeth to bite at his lower lip the way I knew he loved so much, and all of a sudden his hands were all over my ass and he pulled me in close to him and I could feel his cock get hard and I knew it was time to make my move. I slid my hands under his shirt and started to feel around his lean torso before I pulled away from our kisses to start leaving kisses all the way from his bellybutton up to his nipples and then to his neck as I eased the shirt off, up and over his head. He smelled so freaking good, just like amortentia. Or what I think amortentia smells like. I could breathe that boy’s musk in all day and then all of a sudden I’m taken to that day by the lake when he told me he loved me and I told him I loved him back. I told him then in my bedroom that I loved him and I’d never stop, even if he was on his mission for a decade, and he responded by taking his wand out of his pocket and casting _Muffliato_ at the door so no one would hear us and with another wave of his wand the door was locked shut.

            “I love being of age,” he told me then, which was so goddamn funny at the moment and we both started laughing and kissing and it was just so sweet and lovely. This time as we were snogging his hands made their way up my jumper and they felt so nice and warm against my skin, which was covered in goosepimples in the dead of summer. As his fingers made their way under my bra to play with my boobs I let him have a quick squeeze before saying that today was all about him, not me, and I ran my hands down to his belt to undo the buckle. I started to retrace my trail of kisses again, this time down his torso until I reached the button of his jeans that I undid and watched his cock spring out. He was so fucking hard for me. I love how much I made him crazy. I pulled his underwear down around his ankles and started kissing him, starting at the base of his cock and making my way to the soft pink tip. I retraced my kisses over and over, each time wetting his cock a little more with my tongue until before long I was sucking the tip of his cock and started to slide my mouth over it over and over again, pressing my tongue on the thick vein on the underside of his cock which drove him crazy because then all of a sudden he was facefucking me and I could feel the tip of his cock hitting the back of my throat. He was thrusting against the back of my throat until it became sore and it took everything to keep going as my eyes filled with tears and I hardly had a chance to breathe and I could taste his salty precum on my tongue. I looked up at him and we locked eyes and he exclaimed, “Merlin’s beard, Ginny, you’re the hottest girl in the whole fucking universe.” On my knees, on my childhood bedroom floor, bra half on, eyes filled with tears, and saliva dripping down my chin, mouth filled with his cock and I was the hottest girl in the universe. I’ve never felt so sexy. This made me suck his cock even harder, take him in even deeper until he pushed me away and told me that I had to stop and he needed a break. He wiped the saliva off my chin with his thumb and pulled me in closer for a kiss that said thank you and I want more all at the same time.

            “If you need a break why don’t you take the time to undress me?” I asked him because he was standing there basically completely naked, with his pants pooled around his ankles while I was nearly completely clothed. “Yeah, okay,” he said as he kicked off his trainers and stepped out of his pants leaving him in nothing but his dorky white socks. He lifted my jumper up and over my head before he quickly unhooked my bra that he snatched away from me and so he could suck on my nipples. Goddamn, does that boy love my boobs. He palmed and squeezed and sucked for a while until I reminded him that I was only half undressed and I can’t even begin to describe how awkward the crazy dork was as he fumbled at the button of my shorts before he pulled them down to expose my lace panties. With his teeth he began to pull them down, which was not nearly as sexy as he thought it would be and soon abandoned the idea to whip them off me with his hands.

            Everything went hazy as he helped me lay down on the edge of my bed and I could feel his finger inside of me. I could feel his ridged knuckles against my walls and it was complete heaven and there I was transported back to the lake on that day. He pumped his one finger in and out of me a few times before I could feel him add another, and soon after a third. I was being stretched out by Harry Potter and bloody hell. Instead of using his fingers like he had done before he brought his mouth to my clit and I thought I might pass out. A few more times he pumped his fingers in and out of me and all of a sudden I was cumming all over his hand. I begged him to keep going as I came again.

            As I caught my breath I sat up and pulled his hand toward me, and stared right into his green eyes as I sucked my cum off of each of his fingers, and asked him if he was ready for his big present yet (I can’t believe I actually said that— it sounded perfectly fine in my head but now it’s just so awkward!). The dork nodded with the stupidest smile on his face and wordlessly he lead me back so I was lying down completely on my small twin bed and he was parting my legs and taking a second to examine my folds before going for it. I knew neither of us had done it before but my god that boy has instinct in bed. I felt the pain as he first thrust inside of me and I bit hard onto my lower lip as he slid in and out of me, slowly, so he wouldn’t hurt me and I could appreciate every delicious inch of him as he found his way back in me. Yes. This started to feel so good. A few slow, careful motions later and I could feel my walls tightening around his cock as I felt an orgasm erupt through my whole body. Yes, this was fucking Harry Potter. This was _fucking_ Harry Potter and I loved him and I knew he loved me and as I felt my pussy clench around him again. I looked up and saw his facial expression change and his mouth hung open as he jerked in and out of me a few more times and he exclaimed _Fuck_ as I felt his hot cum inside of me.

            My lips hardly began to form _I love you_ as I happened to turn around and peek through my curtains to see Mum and Dad bringing the Delacours back into the house. Shit. I completely lost track of the time. I shot up out of bed and began to pull my clothes on before Harry followed suit and did the same. “How’s my hair?” I asked as I reached for the brush on my dresser and tried to flatten out my sex hair. “Fine,” he said, “and how’s mine?” “It’s the same.” We laughed. I cracked the door open to see that the coast was clear and told him to go back up to Ron’s room all the way upstairs. I could hear his footsteps halfway up and then Hermione said _we’ve been looking for you, Harry_ , and I knew we were caught.

            Hermione came down the stairs and to my room, and stepped inside to ask me if everything was okay. She told me my cheeks were red and she knew that the buzz in her ears was from _Muffliato_. Goddammit, she’s too smart for her own good. I begged her to not ever tell Ron because I knew how he was when he found out I was just snogging Dean and if he knew… It’s best if he just doesn’t. She agreed, and didn’t say anything else to me about it, which I am only too thankful for because if she said something I think I’d die right then and there on my bedroom floor from embarrassment.

            He and I shared secret looks at his birthday dinner over the snitch cake, but only a few, and then Scrimgeour came and the whole night ended in chaos. Well, tomorrow’s the wedding. I know what Firewhiskey did to me. Maybe a few glasses of champagne and he will want me to wish him a happy birthday all over again.

 

**_Saturday, 2 August 1997_ **

            I’ve been crying all night. Not because the wedding was beautiful, because it was, but because he’s gone. He and Ron and Hermione got away before the Death Eaters came and all I can do is hope they’re safe. I don’t even remember what exactly happened. One moment I was dancing with one of Fleur’s cousins and then the next Kingsley’s lynx was there and Fred and George were hurrying with me and Mum toward the protection of the Burrow while Dad and Bill and other Order members stayed to fight the Death Eaters. Everyone managed to get away safe, or at least that’s what Dad says. I hope he’s right.

 

**_Sunday, 31 August 1997_ **

            Holy fucking fuck. I just spent the past few hours organizing and packing all my things to go on the Hogwarts Express tomorrow and at the bottom of my trunk I found the vial of potion, the one I got to use with Dean, the one I meant to use with Harry. Fuck fuck fuck. It was supposed to be taken right after but then Mum and Dad were coming home and he had to get out of my room and everything was crazy and I forgot. I’ve been feeling so tired and sick lately, ever since he left, but that’s just because I’m so worried and don’t know what’s happening, or that’s what I’ve been telling myself. I only started my cycle last year and I’ve missed it before, they say because I’m so skinny. It’ll come back next month and everything will be okay and I can go back to worrying about him and missing him and not having to worry about me too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of my inspiration for the story thus far:  
> One of my favorite authors is William Faulkner- I love his first person narrative style, and definitely took inspiration from that when writing in Ginny's voice.  
> Lady Macbeth: "That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold" (Macbeth 2.2.1)
> 
> I have quite a bit of this story queued up right now but I'm curious to see what you all think. Please feel free to share feedback, I've literally never written anything like this before and am anxious AF to know how it's received.
> 
> Hope to post again quite soon,  
> 


	2. Back to Hogwarts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TFW you realize you might be pregnant but you gotta take the Hogwarts Express in the AM.
> 
> Also Luna and Neville, but mostly Luna, are the best friends ever.

**_Monday, 1 September 1997_ **

            The second I came into her compartment on the train Luna told me that I looked pale and horrible and asked if it was because I was missing them and because of You-Know-Who. I nodded and she said that she was feeling sad and horrible too. I could tell that she missed them but she wouldn’t dare say more to make me feel worse. Neville joined us and it was about the worst ride I’ve ever had, more like a vigil, and we sat there hardly saying anything for hours and I felt so sick and miserable. I was in the seat on the train going backwards and I could feel every irregular bump under the train’s wheels and when the sun came in through the window it came right into my eyes and gave me the worst headache. I spent forever trying to use my bundled up robes as a pillow to make myself comfortable and try to rest because I hadn’t last night but it was no use because every sound and movement kept me up.

            When the lunch trolley arrived they bought pumpkin pasties and chocolate frogs and Luna looked so surprised for a second when I told her I didn’t want any licorice wands, even though she knows they’re my favorite and I always get them. I picked at the stale crusts of the sandwiches Mum packed for me until Luna opened her jar of gurdyroot tea she brought from home and between the smell of that and the sandwiches and the pasties it was all too disgusting and before I realized what I was doing I was puking in Neville’s Mimbulus Mimbletonia’s pot. “It’s lucky you didn’t touch it,” he said, “or it would have sprayed stink sap everywhere.” Stink sap. I puked again. Neville bolted out of the car but Luna sat with me while I wrenched my guts out and when it passed she used _scourgify_ to clean it all up. She pulled an empty jar out of her bag and used _aguamenti_ to fill it with cold water for me and Neville let me spend the rest of the ride trying to sleep against his shoulder if I promised not to puke in his plant again.

            The feast was an overall horror. It wasn’t because of Snape or the Carrows or no Dumbledore or You-Know-Who. Or least not entirely because of that. I felt so tired and disgusting from the train and then the carriage to the castle was bumpy and the sorting took forever. The entire time I craved roasted potatoes like mad, it was the only thing I felt like I wanted to eat in days, but they came covered in garlic, which was about the most disgusting thing I could think of at the time and then I was running out of the Great Hall to the toilets to throw up all over again.

            Barely a minute later I could hear her footsteps running in as Luna came into the stall with me and held my hair back while I tried to throw up nothing. She said she knew there was a problem when she saw me running and asked what was wrong and all I could get out was _the garlic_ before I was sick again. “Is it vampiritis?” she asked and I said _the fuck?!_ She kept going, “Daddy says you get it when you come into contact with vampire venom. Except if you had it you wouldn’t be throwing up and you’d be talking in a Transylvanian accent.”

            I spit excess saliva into the toilet and looked up at her, “Why would you even bring it up then if you know that’s not what’s wrong with me?” I was crying and laughing at the same time. The shit Luna says sometimes.

            “I know. You look exhausted and miserable and the smell of any food causes you to vomit. I can tell, you have a different expression,” she said, and at that second I knew she knew. “This didn’t all just start today. It’s Harry.” She didn’t have to say it but she did. It’s like she can read minds. I looked at her and my eyes filled up with tears and I nodded before I completely broke down and started crying on her shoulder, sitting on the gross floor next to the toilet I just puked into.

            She held me in a hug and said “you’re okay. He may not be here right now but you have me,” and she was petting my hair and rubbing my back and being everything I needed in that moment except for him.

 

**_Tuesday, 2 September 1997_ **

            Last night I lied awake for a long time thinking about how this was real. I held my hands against my belly and knew that I wasn’t alone. I know that I can’t be completely sure that I’m not alone but I can just sense it and in my guts I know that it’s true.

            I don’t know what to do now. Pretend that it’s not true until I can think of a better plan? That’s about all I can come up with. Make excuses, get out of obligations, they’ll all think it’s because I’m sad and I miss them. The school robes hide everything anyway. It can work for right now.

            McGonagall pulled me into her office this morning at breakfast. “Do you know why I’ve called you in?” she asked. _She knows_. I was terrified _. No, I do not know why I’ve been called in_.

            “Seeing as Mr. Pot— “ my heart ached and my eyes filled with tears. She changed her course. “Seeing as… there’s a vacancy for Gryffindor Quidditch captain, I wanted to offer the position to you.”

            Fuck. I almost forgot about Quidditch. I know I can’t play and it kills me. We’ve lost basically our whole team and the newbies from last year just aren’t the same. No Harry, no Ron. I don’t know where Dean is. Everyone else graduated. And now I’m here with my secret and I can’t be on the team either. I took a deep breath to send the tears away and shook my head. _No, I’m sorry, I don’t want it. Thank you._ I never cry and all of a sudden I’m crying like mad every other minute. It wasn’t happening again in a teacher’s office.

            She pursed her lips to hide her surprise, or maybe to stop her from saying something that would make me cry. “Very well, Miss Weasley. I’ll offer the position to Miss Robbins.”   _She would like that very much_ was about all I could say. I knew this year was going to be terrible, but now I don’t even have my favorite sport to look forward to. I can’t believe Quidditch is still happening when there is a war and actual Death Eaters in the school. Maybe I’m safer this way. Keep my head down, go about my business, don’t draw any attention. My family is already in danger and I know I am too. What if the team were attacked during practice? There’s no way the school would station a whole Auror squad just so seven of us could fly around on brooms. Maybe one day once this is all over I’ll have a chance to play again.

            She approved me to take NEWT level Charms, Transfiguration, DADA, and Potions. My A in Herbology wasn’t good enough for NEWT because I kill every non-magical plant I touch and as for tending the magical ones I’m complete rubbish. Can’t even take care of a plant. That’s so promising. And apparently now we all need to take the Muggle Studies that the Carrow bitch is going to teach us which is total crap because I have a feeling this isn’t going to be like the class Dad liked so much in school.

            A day of classes later, even with a free period, and I can’t even keep my eyes open. I could hardly stay awake while Flitwick reviewed substantive charms. How in the hell am I going to get through this school year?

 

**_Friday, 5 September 1997_ **

            After the first week of classes I feel like a flobberworm. Luna’s been great, though. She’s in all of my classes with me and lets me copy off her notes when I’m falling asleep in class, and she even secretly chops the more disgusting potions ingredients for me when Slughorn isn’t looking. She’s actually really amazing at potions, I don’t know why I’ve never noticed that before. Maybe if Snape weren’t such a dickhead all those years and actually noticed talent in his class. Either way, Luna is a total lifesaver in that class, which is the class the sets off my nausea the most because of all the smells, so she slips me peppermint oil to smell when I’m feeling sick or distracts the class when I need to slip out to the toilets or for fresh air. She even started sitting with me at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, because according to her, the houses divide instead of unite us, and, well, all her friends are Gryffindors.

            I think Neville suspects something’s up because he’s always with us at mealtimes and in the library and he’s starting to get suspicious every time we head off to the toilets for “girl time.” His cheeks always turn bright red and he looks so embarrassed and tries to distract himself with reading or talking to Seamus. I secretly think he thinks we’re fucking. What complete lesbian trash that only straight guys would think of. Girls fucking in a bathroom stall. Real classy. Little does he know that she’s really checking in on me, asking me how I’m doing, how my day is going, if I slept, if I ate enough. Sometimes she holds my hair back as I’m throwing up and sometimes she hugs me when I need a thousandth cry of the week. Or maybe we’re just snogging and touching each other’s boobies. The thought of that alone makes me laugh because guys can be so thick, and honestly I’ve needed something to make me laugh lately.

            Apparently Luna knows a whole lot about all of this because her mother used to breed kittens and Kneazles. According to her humans aren’t all that different because _we’re all really the same, essentially_. (I’m not really sure what that means…) She claims that she assisted her mother with the birth of dozens of little kittens and Kneazles, but the last time she helped she was seven, and apparently helping is snuggling baby kittens in warm blankets and naming them after mythological characters. I guess that’s a comforting thought? But it is nice to have such a loyal and wonderful friend.

            She says there are potions I should be taking. She can brew them if she can find the instructions, which are not found in _Advanced Potion Making_. Shocker. She said she could look in the library for them, but I don’t think anywhere in the library for students would give those instructions. I’m too embarrassed to be writing to Flourish and Blotts, or for her to be writing to them for me. Besides, it’s not like I have the Galleons to shell out on books to begin with. There must be a way to get our hands on what we need, and then the most obvious answer hit me.

            We decided that we are going to try the Room of Requirement tomorrow, once we decide exactly what we need from the room.

            _I need a place where we can talk candidly, away from prying ears._

_I need a place with potions books with the instructions Luna needs._

_I need the cauldron, burner, ingredients, and tools to brew the potions._

_I need a nice comfy bed to take a nap in during free periods that’s not in Gryffindor tower. Oh, and maybe a bathroom that’s much nicer and cleaner than the filthy school toilets._

 

**_Saturday, 6 September 1997_ **

            The room has provided. After breakfast we went to the place on the seventh floor and only had to walk past the wall three times until we saw the door appear and inside was everything we needed. A small, cozy room with a soft squishy bed and plenty of pillows. Shelves filled with all the books Luna would need. A potion brewing station complete with cauldron, burner, ingredients, everything. A small bathroom with just toilet and sink but it was bright and spotless.

            Luna perused the bookshelf until she came across a title called _The Magical Midwife_. As she opened it up and began to scan the contents, a giant squishy armchair and side table appeared out of nowhere.

            _The fuck was that?!_ I asked, and she explained that she just thought it would be nice for the room to have a place for her to sit and read and the chair and table appeared.

            She curled up into the armchair with the book on her lap and began to read while I lay on the bed, closing my eyes, enjoying a quiet moment in the castle without the gossip of the girls in my dormitory or talking portraits or shouting first years.

            “Did you use any contraceptives?” she asked, and I told her about the potion I forgot to take, _but I still have it_. She said it would have been pointless because the potion expires within two weeks of brewing. So I’ve been screwed from the start.

            She read aloud: “To confirm the pregnancy one may use the _Sonorus_ charm on the abdomen to detect a heartbeat after the sixth week.” And she continued, “So it looks like we count from the start of your last cycle. Do you know the exact date or can we assume it was exactly two weeks before the thirty-first?”

            _That’s fine. I don’t remember._

            She flipped through some pages and consulted the book: “That would mean that you’re right now in you would be in your seventh week and you would be due around,” she flipped through some more pages, “April twenty-third.” Luna Lovegood has now become my midwife. This is really fucking weird but also I don’t know who else I would want to turn to.

            _You think you can find the heartbeat?_ I asked her.

            “I think so. Do you want to do it here or in the armchair?”

            _Here. I’m so nervous I can hardly move and this way if I faint I’m already lying down._

“Okay, I need you to lift your jumper and maybe unzip your pants a little. You ready?”

            I exposed my belly that was still flat but maybe not for very long, and took a deep breath. _Ready_. Even though I wasn’t.

            She pulled her wand from behind her ear and placed the tip gently just below my belly button. “ _Sonorus_.”

            At first all I could hear were big sounds, like waves in the ocean, but slowly as she moved the wand around my belly we could hear it. Loud, and fast, but regular and strong. A heartbeat.

            “Well you’re definitely pregnant,” she said to me.

            I knew I knew that I was but it wasn’t until she found the heartbeat and said it did it really start to sink in. _I’m pregnant._ I haven’t even been able to say or write the word. _Pregnant_. But now it was clear as daylight while I lay down on the bed and she has her wand tip held steady against my belly and the silence except for the heartbeat from this tiny little nothing inside of me. _I’m pregnant. I have Harry Potter’s child growing in me._

            I cried again, this time out of so many emotions. I was happy that this baby sounded healthy. I was in awe of this tiny miracle taking root inside of me. I was scared shitless. What happens when everybody at Hogwarts finds out? When my family finds out? Will Harry ever even know? And this thing was going to be a real person that I’d have to take care of and feed and clothe and shelter and I’m not even graduated from Hogwarts yet. I’m not even of age. I only just turned sixteen.

            He told me when he broke up with me that it’s because You-Know-Who uses people who are close to him and yes, I’ve been used by You-Know-Who before. What happens if the Death Eaters find out that the girl carrying Harry Potter’s child is in their school. That’s now two people You-Know-Who can use who are close to him and I’m both of them.

            Luna seemed to read my mind. She lowered her wand from my belly and it was silent. “I’ll do whatever you need me to do to help you. I’ve already held your hair back when you’ve been sick, and let me know what food you want I can get it from the kitchens, or if you just need to cry I’m right here.”

            _They could kidnap and torture me to get to him if they knew._

            And now she was tearing up too and I was a crying mess and she helped lift me up to a sitting position and hugged me and we both sat there crying and I was so scared I couldn’t stop shaking (I still can’t stop shaking), but I knew there was no other option for me. “You have me. You’re safe with me.” What did I do to deserve this girl as my friend?

            If these are the only things I know I know that I love this tiny baby, and the thing that You-Know-Who doesn’t understand is love. Dumbledore would have wanted more love in this world, and knew that love was strength and not weakness. I know I need to find courage in love and trust it, which is way scarier than it seems but I think of Harry off doing whatever he’s doing and I can’t imagine anything being much scarier than that when his face is on every poster in the Wizarding World as Undesirable Number One and he could die doing this and I don’t think I can be more scared than he is. He never shows it though and I know that’s what he would want me to do. So long as I carry this life inside of me I carry my love for it too, and so long as I have this love I defy You-Know-Who. So long as I have this love Harry is here and lives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had plenty of this story queued up before I initially posted so why not keep sharing?
> 
> I always suspected that there was so much to Ginny and Luna's friendship that we just don't see in the series, so here's my take on it. If I went to Hogwarts I would personally want Luna and Neville to be my best friends. Love them!! Definitely excited to see how their friendships with Ginny play out... 
> 
> Sorry for no smut in this chapter. I love that steamy fanfic as much as the rest of you but sometimes you can't just do too much of a good thing. First trimester Ginny definitely has other things on her mind.
> 
> Hang in there, stay tuned, there are some good things to come (I hope)... This chapter and the next one or two will be helping me get to a place that I'm super excited to write/share :)
> 
> xoxo Q_A <3


	3. September 1997

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first month back at Hogwarts and so much is happening. Babies, BFF Luna, the Carrows suck, Neville does questionable things...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how to properly summarize this chapter because so much stuff is happening. Read and enjoy :)
> 
> xoxo Q_A

**_Monday, 8 September 1997_ **

            We spent all weekend in the Room of Requirement. Luna looked up useful potions and decided to begin with a prenatal potion and a nausea-relieving one. The room seemed to detect that the smell of brewing potions made me absolutely nauseous, and emitted a lovely, calming citrus smell to cover the potion smell while Luna worked. I was able to get some quiet hours to rest, and if I didn’t want quiet the room surprised us with a magical wireless, and we spent hours in there with The Weird Sisters as our soundtrack. I was even able to get my homework done in such a relaxing environment where I didn’t have to fear other people walking in on me or chatty girls or loud first and second years, or the goddamn Carrows or Snape. Everywhere else in the castle I’m always on edge in fear that somebody is going to find out, but here I know that we’re all safe.

            Luna decided that we should keep using the DA coins as a way to communicate with each other, so she would know if I needed her and we would meet in the room. Otherwise, she would let me know when a potion was ready to drink.

            I still feel like complete rubbish just about all day but the nausea potion has helped me eat more and I didn’t feel the need to vomit once in Potions class! And eating again does feel really good, I feel less sluggish now that I can stomach something and can give my body and the baby what we both need. I’m still so tired all the time. I used today’s free period to take a much needed nap in the Room of Requirement, and Luna just sat there with me and read the _Quibbler_. I said she didn’t have to join me all the time, but she likes the company, even if I am passed out sleeping. Besides, I don’t think I would be able to get out of bed without her there to wake me up before it’s time for the next class.

            She’s not Looney. She’s the best friend I could possibly ask for.

 

**_Tuesday, 16 September 1997_**

           I.  Am. So. HUNGRY. Bloody hell, this nausea potion really works. Now that I don’t feel sick all the time all I want is roast potatoes, and mashed potatoes, and chocolate, and candy floss, and ooh a nice, greasy cheese toasty, and maybe some pumpkin juice. Nothing particularly healthy, unless cheesy, gooey, French onion soup counts. Everything all of a sudden sounds so tasty to me and in the Great Hall I don’t even care how much food I put onto my plate I’ve just been so hungry lately. I still don’t want any garlic, though. At least it doesn’t make me puke.

            The only downside to being able to eat again is my clothes are starting to feel tight. My skirts that used to fit me a little big now are feeling tight and I can’t even suck in my stomach to do the zipper. It still zips but the fit is tight and uncomfortable. After a day of classes and actual, huge meals I take it off and I can see a red mark all around my middle from it being so tight. My bras are getting so uncomfortable and I don’t think I’ll be able to button up these shirts much longer because my boobs are growing like mad. At least the sweater will hide that. I found a charm in _Magical Miracles: A New Mother’s Guide for Witches_ that’s supposed to make your clothes a little (or a lot) bigger and stretchier that Luna said she’d help me try. It’ll even work on my bras that are quickly becoming my own personal torture devices. Thank goodness. I need to be able to breathe in my clothes again. I don’t know how Muggle women could possible handle having to buy a whole new wardrobe. Or multiple wardrobes, because I know in time I’ll be absolutely massive (but let’s not think about that yet).

            And now I’m craving pudding so fucking bad let’s hope the Great Hall serves something good.

 

**_Saturday, 20 September 1997_ **

            The castle is so fucking grim now. It’s not even Snape—we hardly see him. He’s rarely in the Great Hall during meals and other than the start of term feast I think I’ve seen him in the castle maybe a total of four times thus far. Normally I wouldn’t complain but I know he’s not here because he’s off helping You-Know-Who. It’s clear You-Know-Who has taken over the school, not just because of Snape, but because of everything else. Just yesterday in Muggle Studies we had to turn in a paper about why non-magical blood will be the downfall of the Wizarding World if we keep breeding with Muggles. It scares the hell out of me that this is the world I’ll bring this baby into. Not just that, but a baby who’s father is half-blood and also Undesirable Number One. Another part of me, the smallest little inkling of guts I may still have, feels powerful and defiant to know I resist You-Know-Who just by existing, just by living my life and letting this life grow in me.

            And Carrow bitch’s brother teaches us just the dark arts, not how to defend it. Neville says the dickwad is teaching the seventh years to use the the Cruciatus Curse on puppies. _Puppies!_ What kind of sicko would even think to do that?! Neville said that he and the other students who refused to do it had it performed on them instead. The fuck. Apparently those Slytherin meatheads Crabbe and Goyle are super into it. Bloody fucking hell.

            With all this absolute bullshit going on, I was so happy to receive a letter from Hagrid yesterday morning inviting me to tea after classes. I had barely spoken to him this year other than quick hellos when we cross paths. Luna came with me and honestly I don’t think I can do anything here anymore without her. I don’t even feel safe being in the castle without her with me, and it’s crazy because I never used to be afraid but that’s when we had Dumbledore and I had only myself to worry about.

            He wanted to see how I was doing and it was so difficult to keep a calm face and say I’m fine. He asked why I’m not playing Quidditch and it sucked to lie and say that I just didn’t want to this year. He says that’s not the right way to think and Dumbledore wouldn’t want us to do nothing and hide when we are facing evil, but instead we should go on as normal as possible and fight back. He wanted to start having “Support Harry Potter” parties at his hut. He invited us back next Friday for the first party and said to invite anybody we know who wants to come. I fear what would happen if we were caught but honestly what harm would a small, secret gathering do? Luna and I told him we would bring Neville back next week with us because he’s the first person we can think of who would want to be there too. It’ll just be three of us meeting Hagrid for tea. We’ve done that before. It’ll be okay. It might even be fun.

            And then after Hagrid’s last night Luna and I had to go back to the Room of Requirement because she said the next batch of prenatal potion would be ready and I should take it before I go to bed. We stayed a while because it wasn’t nearly eleven and time for curfew. She was starting a new batch of anti-nausea potion, while I was flipping through _The Magical Midwife_ and found something cool I wanted to try. According to the book you can use _hominem revelio_ to see the baby. I needed her to help me. _Can we try it?_ I sat back in the big chair because we thought that would be the best way for me to see, and pulled up my jumper.

            I can’t see the faint outline of my ribcage anymore, even if I suck my stomach in, which I also can’t do, and the belly that was once flat and shapeless now has the tiniest bit of a curve sticking out. I can’t believe I was so busy and tired (and maybe way too shocked) to really look at how much my body has already changed.   And this is not even a quarter of the way through so I’m definitely not going to think now about how many more changes I can still expect and when I can’t hide it and when everybody will know and what will happen when everybody knows. Still pushing that from my mind. Not there yet, that is future me’s problem.

            Luna pressed the tip of her wand to my belly and the coolest and weirdest thing I have ever seen happened. Out of nowhere a black shadow appeared on my belly, definitely some weirdo fetal shape. It doesn’t just stay in one place either. It’s moving. I can’t feel it yet but it’s moving and now I can see it. Luna thinks it looks like a baby Grindylow and I don’t know how to take that. I knew it was real when I heard it but now I see it and it’s moving and lively and definitely, definitely real. Bloody hell.

            I couldn’t take my eyes off of it and then I could feel myself starting to cry again. Luna came and sat on the corner of the armchair next to me and put her arms around me and gave me the biggest hug. She then traced where the baby moved with her finger and said “Hi. You don’t know me yet but I’m Luna and I love you and your mother very much. She and your father are two of my best friends and two of the best people I know and I want you to know that even though there’s a war right now and everything sucks you don’t and you’re good and pure and wonderful and I can’t wait to meet you.”

            I’m not going to lie, having somebody talk to your belly and not your face, and having someone touch your belly without your permission is really weird, but coming from Luna this was the most honest and lovely thing. She means everything she says and this was the best thing anyone’s ever said to me, even though she wasn’t exactly saying it to me. It made me cry even more.

            Luna wanted to work on the potion a little bit and I was getting so tired from a long day, so after a long time staring at the little thing inside of me and tracing its movements with my finger, I lied down in the bed and told her to wake me up when it’s time to leave. She did _finite_ on the little shadow, because otherwise, according to her I would still have the shadow dancing around on my belly until someone stopped the charm. It would be kind of weird to be taking a shower or something and there’s just this little shadow friend still there.

            A half hour before curfew she woke me and said she was done with the potion for now and we should leave. I couldn’t open my eyes. _Ten more minutes. Please. Lie down with me, I haven’t had a proper cuddle with anyone for ages. You can set an alarm_.

            I was surprised that she actually did come lie down with me and I could snuggle up next to my best friend and it wasn’t weird or awkward or anything. It’s nice to feel the warmth of someone who cares about you, especially when I feel so alone so much even though I’m never alone anymore. And we accidentally fell asleep like that and woke up and we were still in the Room of Requirement, which was kind enough to provide us with toothbrushes in the bathroom. Good thing that Filch sucks at his job and students are out of bed and out past curfew all the time and nobody seems to care all that much. This school is dangerous as fuck and I almost died here in my first year and people can get away with crap like not going back to your dormitory at night pretty easily. But I won’t complain as long as the rules can bend in my favor…

 

**_Wednesday, 24 September 1997_ **

            I had the weirdest fucking dream last night. I was in a hospital kind of like St. Mungo’s but everything was white and strange. I just gave birth when Hagrid, who was my midwife, hands me the baby bundled in blankets but it’s not a baby it looked like one of the gnomes from the garden but it had a lightening scar on its forehead and glasses and Luna is by my side and says to me _Look how beautiful our baby is, such a handsome Crumpled Horn Snorcack_ and we decided to call it Neville Voldemort Lovegood. Professor Sprout comes in and says that its cry is fatal like a mandrake’s cry and begins to hand us all fluffy pink earmuffs and gave me as a gift a flower pot to plant it in, like it were actually a mandrake. Luna planted it in the pot and covered it in soil and said that it would be the perfect gift for Neville because he loves magical plants and he’d be so honored that we named the baby after him. The real Neville took the potted plant and cried and said it was the most beautiful and magical plant he’d ever seen and then said he had to take it right away because it needed sunlight so it could grow into a healthy Whomping Willow. Then Neville left with Luna to go to Hogwarts to get it in the greenhouse right away and I was alone in this hospital bed crying for my baby that was taken away from me.

            I woke up in a cold sweat so bad my pajamas and sheets were soaked through. This is definitely one of those weird dreams like I read about in _Magical Miracles_. I don’t know if I can look at Hagrid or Luna or Neville or Professor Sprout the same way ever again. All day I’ve been quiet and awkward because I just can’t get over the dream. I know this baby isn’t going to be a gnome or a mandrake or that I’ll name it after You-Know-Who but I can’t unsee any of it.

            We have our first Support Harry Potter party at Hagrid’s this Friday and I’ll have to get over this dream. I don’t think I can tell even Luna about the dream because I don’t think I can explain it in a way that makes sense. It didn’t make sense and the more I think about it the less it makes sense and the more abstract it becomes but I cant get the images of Hagrid handing me the baby or the gnome face or Luna as the other parent or the earmuffs out of my head. Bloody fucking hell. And this is supposed to be a normal thing that happens. I’m just glad I’m not in Divination anymore. Could you imagine Trelawney interpreting this dream? Fucking fuck now I’m imagine being in Divination and Trelawney interpreting the dream so maybe I should just turn my brain off and it can come back when I’m not pregnant anymore.

 

**_Saturday, 27 September 1997_ **

            The party last night was weird and now I’m really scared for Neville. The three of us showed up at Hagrid’s after dinner, which we did in part so we wouldn’t have to eat his cooking. He invited us in and made us tea and asked us why we didn’t bring any more people. It was awkward to try and make up an excuse but he said he didn’t mind he was happy we were all there, but I could tell he was a little upset we didn’t bring other people.

            Everything started fine. He asked us about our classes and how school was going. We complained about the Carrows and how much they suck and Snape and how much he sucks. When he found out how dickwad Carrow has us practicing unforgivable curses he traded his cup of tea for his giant mug of brandy. He says he’s getting scared for his own good, but he says he has to be here for the students who don’t support You-Know-Who.

            After a while we started talking about the night of Harry’s birthday, when Scrimgeour came and gave Harry and Ron and Hermione the things from Dumbledore’s will. He was on his third helping of Brandy at the time. He said he wished he could just get Gryffindor’s sword over to Harry, because he knew exactly where it was, or at least where Dumbledore kept it. He knew that it used to be in Dumbledore’s office in the case behind his desk but wasn’t sure if it was still there now that it’s Snape’s office. He wanted to get the sword and give it to the Order so they can hand it over to Harry. That might help him on his mission, only thing is we don’t even know where Harry is.

            Everything got quiet after a while, because Hagrid finished talking and none of us knew what to say. He didn’t want us to leave yet though. He told us a new unicorn was born, not too far into the forest. Why don’t we go outside and see the new baby unicorn? Luna and I went with him and Neville said he would catch up with us he had to take a piss first. Hagrid, Luna, and I were with the baby unicorn for a long time. I know Hagrid likes more dangerous creatures but Merlin’s beard baby unicorns might be the cutest things ever. They’re more trusting than the adult ones, who prefer women anyway, so it was being so cute and cuddly with Luna and me. The babies give kisses too, like a puppy, and it is magical happiness to have a sweet little unicorn baby lick your cheek. My heart became so full from this cute little unicorn that my eyes actually began to water because I couldn’t get over how cute it was and how it could possibly exist and then it looked at me with these huge, sweet, puppy dog eyes that were just too cute and I felt a tear actually fall down my cheek. Goddamn, these fucking unicorns, and now I’m crying again thinking about how cute they are. Imagine if they made good pets and I had one and it became best friends with the baby and they grew up together and became best friends and cuddled together and the unicorn would give the baby kisses and bloody hell I have to stop thinking about cute things and crying.

            Neville never found us outside and after a little while we decided to head back, and figured Neville probably got lost and we would find him. He was back in Hagrid’s hut, sitting on Fang’s bed while the dog was on his back and had his big belly in the air and Neville was petting his belly so his foot began to shake and was saying “who’s a good boy?” over and over again, while Fang gave him slobbery kisses on his face. I didn’t realize Neville liked dogs so much but what sane person doesn’t like dogs?

            At this point we realized it was getting late and we should head back to the castle. Neville got up and tripped over Fang’s bed, which was not unusual for Neville, but he seemed a little clumsier than normal. We left, and Neville started saying that he was feeling so _invigorated_. He was shouting “Yeah! Support Potter! Fuck you Snape! Fuck you Carrows!” into the air so loudly we were afraid someone was going to hear and we would be in trouble. Every time we tried to shush him he would scream “Whoo!! Dumbledore’s Army forever!!” and that’s when I realized he smelled like Hagrid’s brandy. We almost made it to the entrance hall when he stopped in his tracks and threw up, which then made me throw up and that was no fun because thanks to the lifesaver of the anti-nausea potion I haven’t thrown up or felt sick in weeks.

            He insisted he was fine after he threw up and that he felt better. When we got to the stairs in the castle he told us to go ahead to bed, he had to do something before going up. It was five minutes to curfew and we didn’t want to argue or get in trouble, especially if we ran into Filch who would be locking the doors soon, so we trusted him and went to our dormitories to bed.

            This morning when I went to breakfast there were a bunch of students and teachers were crowded around the wall in the entrance hall. The one You-Know-Who possessed me as a first year to write messages on. Just like the messages I was forced to paint were in blood, the one on there now was in red paint (I hope). It read _DUMBLEDORE’S ARMY STILL RECRUITING_ and under it was a crude image of the Carrow brother sucking You-Know-Who’s dick and the image had a charm on it so it looked like You-Know-Who was facefucking Carrow. Another image I can’t get out of my head. The painter used a permanent sticking charm on the paint because no matter what charms the professors tried, or however much Filch scrubbed at it, the paint wouldn’t move. Eventually McGonagall shooed us all away and conjured giant curtains on the wall to hide the message and image.

            At breakfast Luna and I sat with Neville, and when nobody was listening he said under his breath, “it’s good, isn’t it?” I was hoping it wouldn’t be because I had no idea he could draw but it was Neville. Fuck. I sometimes forget that he got good at magic two years ago. We couldn’t talk about it at breakfast, not when more Gryffindors started to sit down at the table, but Luna and I looked at each other and knew that we had to talk to Neville.

            Snape appeared at the podium in the Great Hall and called for silence that happened really quickly. He said that whoever took it into their own hands to “decorate the castle” would be in detention every day until they graduate. Shit. They’re going to catch Neville and he’ll be even more fucked than Carrow is in the picture he painted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoa. Finally getting to some juicy stuff. Not that drunk Neville is completely canon, but I think the combination of him probably being hilarious when drunk, and his Gryffindor daring are a perfect match for him to make some bold statements.
> 
> Some of my inspiration for this chapter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IR9v1lUSfkY  
> basically my personal feelings for Luna at this point.
> 
> Yes I'm a total Potterhead inside and out but I'm guessing most of you are too if you're here reading this :)
> 
> Let me know what you think! I love reading your comments!! Tell me if there's anything you want to see happen in this story! I'm open to suggestions!!!
> 
> Until next time,  
> xoxo Q_A


	4. DA up in Smoke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Definitely not a lot of plot, but I had a lot of fun exploring a certain headcanon of mine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been a while since I've posted. I was sick, I had other obligations, etc etc. Happy to be back writing and I hope you all enjoy this.

**_Thursday, 2 October 1997_ **

            I don’t think I’ve felt worse since before Luna started brewing the potions for me. All this stress from Neville along with everything. The teachers haven’t figured out who painted on the wall yet. Some second years were caught peeking behind the curtain so now McGonagall put another permanent sticking charm on the curtain so no students can peek under it, but on one can erase the image from their minds. I heard some boys in the back of Charms the other day talking about how someone drew the image inside a stall in one of the boys’ toilets. Neville still hasn’t been caught (also, who would guess that _Neville_ of all people would have done it) but that doesn’t keep Luna and I from being on edge at every moment and spending hours in the Room of Requirement worrying about him. I don’t think he realizes how much trouble he could get himself into, especially because I see him peek over at the curtain in the Entrance Hall during meals and smile to himself. I don’t know if it’s all this added stress or the baby but I’ve been feeling constantly queasy despite the anti-nausea potion and anytime I eat anything I feel the worst heartburn. Maybe it’s because I’m constantly aware of my heart beating so quickly with all the stress of everything. I don’t remember what it’s like to feel relaxed. When I’m not worried about myself or Neville or what’s going on at school, it’s Mum and Dad and the other members of the Order or my brothers, especially Ron, and Hermione and Harry. And letters from home feel so forced. Forced smiles, forced happiness, forced _everything’s fine_ when it’s not. There’s no easy way to tell them, especially when we only communicate by letters, and who knows who’s intercepting those.

            Tomorrow we are supposed to go back to Hagrid’s and Luna and I are terrified that Neville will pull another stunt like last week. We feel like we need to be watching him all the time, but he’s in seventh year so we aren’t in the same classes. I hope this was just a one-time thing. And if it’s not… I don’t want to think about it. I don’t know how much more stress I can handle right now.

 

**_Sunday, 5 October 1997_ **

            Fuck Neville fucking Longbottom. I’m either going to kill him or beat the shit out of him or bat bogey hex that fucker so hard that his Gran won’t be able to recognize him. He thinks it’s like the DA again and we are all going to fight against Snape and the Carrows and throw them out of the school like we did with Umbridge and then everything will go back to normal again. I don’t think he gets that this isn’t like Umbridge, because our world is at war and we are all in danger. Snape and the Carrows are here because You-Know-Who put them here. _The Daily Prophet_ doesn’t have to say it or anything but we all know it. It’s so fucking reckless to be doing what he’s doing and go against Snape and the Carrows because doing that is basically trying to fight You-Know-Who and that’s dangerous as fuck. It’s like he’s completely oblivious to all the people and family members and loved ones dying around us at the hands of his Death Eaters.

            On Friday Neville asked Luna and I to go to the greenhouses after lessons and before we headed for Hagrid’s, because he said he had a new plant he wanted to show us. Luna and I walked into the greenhouse, and it smelled ghastly. We thought that Neville was going to be by himself and maybe show us some gross new pustules on that _Mimbulus Mimbletonia_ he loves so much, but what we walked in on was Neville, joined by Seamus and a few Hufflepuffs from the DA, Susan, Ernie, and Hannah, and they did actually have a new plant to show us. Hidden deep in Greenhouse 5 they decided to plant a non-magical variety that they say Muggles go nuts for. Seamus got it this past summer from Dean when he was visiting him at his family’s house, and said that it’s the one thing Muggles do right that they’ll never teach us in Muggle Studies. It’s called marijuana and Muggles are raking in the pounds selling this shit, which by the way is illegal in the Muggle world. This stupid plant is illegal but Venemous Tentacula and Devil’s Snare aren’t? Our world really is fucked, but that’s beyond the point.

            The five of them were passing between them a bottle of Firewhiskey that Hannah smuggled into the school disguised as perfume, which Luna and I declined. Any other time we would have probably said yes, but I can’t and the two of us know what Neville does when he’s drunk.

            They all passed the bottle between themselves, and after a while Neville and Seamus went over to look at the marijuana they were growing in the greenhouse, took a good look at the size of the leaves, and said that it looked ready. They picked a few leaves off of one of the plants, and Neville tapped them with his wand, making them shrivel up. Seamus pulled a small glass thing out of his robe pocket that he said he got at a Muggle shop with Dean. I could tell that it was hard for him to talk about Dean, because he didn’t make eye contact with anyone, and no one has heard from him since the summer. I know we didn’t end things well, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel sad, too. It’s clear that Seamus is hurting, especially when we hear stories of more people dead every day. He was the one to spend the most time drinking Firewhiskey, and his face and neck were beet red. He put the dried leaves inside of the glass and doing what he does best, ignited it with his wand, while smoking from the glass piece.

            _Muggle drugs! That’s what you wanted to show us here? What the fuck, Neville?!_

            According to him they weren’t just Muggle drugs. Seamus brought some with him to school and Neville helped him plant it and grow it in the greenhouse, the one that Professor Sprout lets the seventh year NEWT students tend to more or less unsupervised. And if they need to disguise it, Ernie can easily transfigure it to camouflage with the other magical plants and turns it into Fluxweed. I could have never imagined Ernie, the prefect, who always has his shirt buttoned to the top button, tie perfectly done, and hair always perfectly in line, the guy who gives handshakes instead of hugs, to be part of this endeavor. Well, there’s another thing I can laugh about.

            Neville enchanted the leaves so they weren’t just the boring Muggle variety of the plant, but were instead some new magical hybrid of the plant. Seamus calls it _Wizard Weed_. When you exhale the smoke it turns different colors, and will take on different shapes. Seamus’ first exhale was a purple star. Hannah exhaled a green heart. Ernie first exhaled blue smoke shaped like spheres, like bubbles, then tapped one with his wand and the smoke transformed into a dick. I never would have expected this out of him. It made everyone laugh, even Luna and me.

            The greenhouse got smokier and smokier with a rainbow of smoke, and everyone got really silly. They continued to pass the bottle of Firewhiskey and the glass pipe around until both were finished. The smoke was definitely no good for me and I knew that I needed to leave, but I wasn’t leaving without Neville. I was nervous Professor Sprout would find us here, but according to the Hufflepuffs Friday is the day she spends all night in The Three Broomsticks. While everyone else was going crazy, giggling, talking about Merlin knows what, Luna and I whispered about getting out of there. We could bring Neville back to Gryffindor tower or the Room of Requirement, and apologize Hagrid tomorrow.

            Neville said, “this shit is fucking awesome,” after he exhaled puffy, bright blue clouds that looked more like candy floss. He said Wizard Weed “is the best way to show appreciation for Muggle culture,” and continued going on about how he’d never in all his studies or books found a plant that was more magical, a plant that funnily enough is something almost exclusively Muggles enjoy.

            We were just leaving the greenhouse, to get fresh air if anything, when Neville shouts, “You guys aren’t joining us at Hagrid’s?” Shit. He remembered. Everyone started shouting how Hagrid’s would be the perfect place to continue the party (I don’t know why, it’s not like he offers brandy to the students), and with crazy shouting and giggling they all left the greenhouse and headed down to Hagrid’s. For good measure, Luna and I cleared up the smoke and smell before we followed them down. I was terrified we would get caught on our way there, because they were so loud. Neville was shouting like last week, things like _FUCK THE CARROWS_ and _SUPPORT HARRY POTTER_. Bloody hell, you can’t say those things anymore!

            Hagrid’s was a nightmare, and within an hour or so Hagrid was as drunk as everyone else, even though he didn’t have any Wizard Weed, and his hut became a crazy gathering of drunk people coming up with crazy ways to overthrow the bullshit going on in the school. By the end they thought it would be a great idea to re-form the DA with Neville and Hagrid as the leaders, and they would overthrow them by bringing a dozen nifflers into the castle, which they would all train to annoy the Carrows so much they would have no choice but to leave. As for Snape, they thought they would turn the outside of the Headmaster’s office into a giant bathtub filled with soapy bubbles, that Snape would fall into and then make him face Neville’s transformed boggart, Snape dressed as Neville’s gran. They would do everything possible to disrupt classes, which they can do because they all have decent stockpiles of Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes merchandise. They’d do what Fred and George did to Umbridge, and instead of us all leaving the castle on brooms, they would magic brooms to carry away the Carrows and Snape and bring them to the Himalayas, where the Yeti can keep them his prisoners.

            It was all such drunk bullshit that made Luna and I uncomfortable and nervous. We hoped that by the next day nobody would remember anything come the morning. When this terrible night at Hagrid’s was finally over I was completely exhausted and could hardly keep my eyes open and all I wanted was to go to bed, but after another loud (possibly louder, I have a feeling they might have slipped some booze from Hagrid) trip back through the grounds to the castle, the Hufflepuffs thought it was a great idea to go to the kitchens for a late night snack. I begged Neville to get snacks quickly and come up to Gryffindor tower to eat them, which he only agreed to because it was getting so close to curfew. What felt like half a forever later, he and Seamus came out of the kitchens with their arms full of bread, cheese, and jam, and we could finally go to bed, while the Hufflepuffs continued their snacking party in the kitchens. At least Luna waited with me because she knew I couldn’t take dealing with them all anymore like this, and I know Luna couldn’t go to bed unless she knew that Neville was back in Gryffindor tower and not trying to redecorate the castle.

            We were finally heading back up to Gryffindor Tower when Neville and Seamus had a spark of inspiration. Before we knew what was happening, they had their wands out and every suit of armor statue had _I SUPPORT HARRY POTTER_ written across the breastplates. And yes, even drunk and stumbling they remembered the permanent sticking charms.

            _What the fuck guys?!_ I couldn’t shout at them the way I wanted in fear of a professor or even worse Peeves hearing me. We tried to tell them how it wasn’t funny, how they’d get in so much trouble if they were found out, how we’re all in danger, but they didn’t seem to care. I had to beg them to finally come through the portrait hole and get to bed.

            Last night after everything was finally all over and I was so tired and just needed to sleep but my heart couldn’t stop beating so hard and kept me up all night. I felt like death this morning and the circles under my eyes and general nauseous look matched Neville’s and Seamus’ and the Hufflepuffs’ after last night, but unlike the rest of them I had no appetite for greasy fry up food and again, even with extra doses of anti-nausea potion could hardly keep food down, or want to eat anything at that.

            Snape addressed the school again this morning with an announcement that there would now be guards at all hours in the corridors of the school to make sure a stunt like this is never pulled again, and now the suits of armor all wear wizard’s robes to cover the message.   When Snape made the message I saw Seamus look really nervous and guilty, but not Neville who is the same as he was last weekend after his first stunt.

            After breakfast in the Room of Requirement, Luna and I decided that Neville needs an intervention. He doesn’t realize how much trouble he’s putting himself and everyone else in with all this bullshit. Tomorrow, after classes, we’re bringing him to the Room, and if he doesn’t listen there’s always the Bat-Bogey hex, or I’ll just punch him in the face.

 

**_Monday, 6 October 1997_ **

            That was a fucking nightmare. At lunch we told Neville to meet us in the Room after classes were over and he said he was, but he seemed scattered and flighty and his eyes were red. I was hoping it was because he was up all night doing the homework he didn’t do during the rest of the weekend, but something told me that wasn’t the case. He tore his bread into tiny pieces and dropped them into his soup, which he then stirred around, and watched like it was the most exciting thing ever. He started talking about how soup is just like hot breakfast cereal, but you eat it for lunch, and wondered why you don’t put carrots or potatoes or beef in your breakfast cereal, because they’re both meals you eat in a bowl. Fucking hell, I could tell something was up with him.

            After dinner he came with us to the Room, which turned into a cozy sitting room, with squishy armchairs and couches, and a blazing fireplace. A perfect place to talk, except that’s not what Neville thought. As soon as we got in he pulled the glass pipe out of his pocket and started smoking again, because he discovered something new he could do with Wizard Weed. When he exhaled the smoke became glittery, sparkly stars that danced around our heads, and all Neville could do was watch. We tried to talk to him, we really did, but he was in no place to listen.

            _Have you been smoking that crap all day?_

            He said he was, it takes the edge off of everything and how terrible everything is right now.

            _I fucking know everything sucks right now but do you see me and Luna high out of our minds?_

            We’re at war and one of my only friends here is on goddamn drugs and going to get us all killed.

            There is no way to reason with him while he’s like this so we dropped the conversation and brainstormed. Do we tell McGonagall and tell her how it’s been Neville who’s been vandalizing the castle? She may be in the Order, but she’s strict as fuck and I can’t begin to imagine how she would react if she knew. Do we tell Professor Sprout that her best students are using her greenhouse to grow Wizard Weed and get them all in trouble? The rest of the Hufflepuffs weren’t doing shit apart from saying stupid things and eating.

 

**_Thursday, 9 October 1997_ **

            This Wizard Weed shit is becoming a goddamn trend at the school. Seamus has started a secret business of selling it concealed in quills, so students are smoking from their quills everywhere, in the halls, in classes (mostly the Carrows’ classes or potions because there is already a burner to light the quills there). It doesn’t smell anymore either because apparently Ernie figured out a charm to stop that. Any other time it would be a right laugh to see ridiculous puffs of smoke in the middle of Carrow making an idiot of herself telling us how Muggles are little more than talking apes and becoming totally flustered when the smoke starts appearing, but now it’s fucking scary. I see more people everyday with bloodshot eyes completely spaced out, and I know now that that’s from Wizard Weed.

            Luna and I decided that we are staying the fuck away from all this shit. Maybe being high helps you forget that there’s a war going on and your professors are teaching you dark magic, but it makes everyone so fucking stupid and I know that can’t be safe. We know we have to talk to Neville but how? Whenever I see him he’s high out of his mind and starts telling us about his plants. I’m pretty sure all the members who are still in the DA are buying Wizard Weed now too, because it seems like all of them are always together in the middle of a rainbow of smoke and laughing. Way to help raise morale in the school, guys.

            Even if reforming the DA or whatever is total bullshit, Luna’s been telling me about how her dad has been publishing about how we really do need to support Harry. He sends her every new _Quibbler_ and we read them together in the Room of Requirement. If it weren’t for them and for Luna I think I would go insane. All my old friends are always drugged up, for the first time none of my family is here, Hermione’s gone, and Harry is too at the time when all I want is him here and we could be together again and he would know and everything would be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, I am not at all against the use of this plant, be it Wizard or Muggle, but I think Ginny would be right now. If I were a background Ravenclaw I'd probably be flying in a cloud of blue and bronze smoke, if you get what I'm saying. If Hogwarts is essentially wizard high school there HAS to be some illicit alcohol and drug use, right? Also, I'm definitely not saying that all Hufflepuffs are stoners, but their common room according to Pottermore has a large assortment of interesting plants and it is right next to the kitchens... (be mad at me, whatever, it's my headcanon)


	5. Caught

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We all know this moment's going to happen... but what were the exact circumstances surrounding their capture?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that there is a change of perspective in the middle of the chapter. I will be examining this story from different perspectives in later chapters, but it just didn't make sense to me until now.

**_Sunday, 12 October 1997_ **

            We finally had a weekend without any crazy stunts, thank goodness. Luna and I didn’t go to Hagrid’s on Friday, and I was able to tell him yesterday at breakfast that I wasn’t feeling well, and honestly I’m glad I didn’t go because I saw Neville and Seamus come back into the Common Room at the same time as I did on Friday night and I could tell they were up to the same bullshit as last week. Luckily no new decorations, though, and I think it’s because Seamus got so freaked out last week after he did it. Instead Luna and I were in the Room of Requirement with biscuits and hot chocolates we got from the kitchens.

            We used _hominem revelio_ again and this thing is really growing. Before it was smaller than a Snitch and now it appears just smaller than the palm of my hand. It actually is looking like a tiny human and I can see it moving, even though I still can’t feel it. If I prod at it it moves too, and I can see tiny arms and legs punching and kicking. Bloody hell, this is actually a fucking person, and it’s actually growing and it’s actually going to keep growing and only two people in the entire world know about it and neither of us know anything about babies. The overwhelming part of me wants to hide it under my school robes until one day, like magic, there’s a real baby and I’ll have no idea where that came from. I know that can’t work, but I don’t see any other way out. It’s not exactly something you go and tell your teachers, and I have no idea how in the world I can tell Mum and Dad. _Guess what, your sixteen-year-old is giving you your first grandchild._ Fucking hell, I just don’t think they could ever know. I can see Mum getting so mad and crying and it would be a total mess, and how do you go about telling your Dad and six older brothers this? I don’t think it’s possible.

            And when I’m sitting in the Room of Requirement playing this weird game of tag with the little friend inside of me my mind can’t help wandering to other places, imagining my life if You-Know-Who didn’t exist, if there wasn’t a war, and Harry and I would be together. We could have finished Hogwarts and had jobs and we would be married and this baby wouldn’t be something to hide and we could celebrate it and be happy together, instead of just me being alone and terrified. All our friends and family would be happy instead of disappointed. We would spend weeks setting up the perfect nursery, buying the perfect clothes and pram and nappies. Every night we would cuddle together and he would be excited to feel the baby moving in my tummy and watching it grow instead of me by myself hoping beyond hope I stay small so nobody knows. It always makes me so sad to think about this, what could have been if I weren’t so stupid, if the world weren’t so shitty.

            On another note I ran into Neville today on the first floor by the gargoyle statue that I know leads to the Headmaster’s office. He was sitting on the floor reading one of his Herbology books and taking notes with a quill that I could have sworn I saw pink smoke coming out of. What the fuck was he doing there? Did he forget that the floor wasn’t the library or is he trying to spy on Snape? I asked him what he was doing and he said he was just studying somewhere quiet, but I know that wasn’t true because I could hear Peeves in the next hallway over. I said this to him and asked why he wasn’t in the library, which was always quiet and he said that Madam Pince scares him? What a bullshit excuse. I’ve known him for six years and never heard him say that before, and I’ve also seen him in the library many times. He’s lying to me and I don’t know what he’s lying about.

 

**_Wednesday, 15 October 1997_ **

            Banned from Hogsmeade and detention to be determined and now I know what Neville was up to. Luna and I were in the Room of Requirement, where we basically live now, because it’s quiet and calm and lovely, all night and decided it close enough to curfew that we needed to go back to our dormitories. I was almost back to Gryffindor Tower and I run into Neville who was leaving the common room. _What in the fuck are you doing?_ He said he did it, he figured it out, he knows how to get it to help Harry and I should come with him. I had no idea what he was talking about, and before I could even think about what he was saying he started walking away from me, towards the nearest staircase. I kept trying to ask him what he was doing, but he said he would tell me when we got there. I don’t know why I followed him, maybe because he said his name, maybe because I thought I could stop him, maybe because he was shouting so loud I was afraid Peeves or Filch would find him soon and I thought I could shut him up. I don’t know why I didn’t think to hex him, disarm him, curse him, anything to stop him but everything happened so quickly and my mind hasn’t been its best lately.

            We get over to the staircase when we run into Luna, who had her wand behind her ear and I could tell she was thinking because she didn’t even notice us until Neville started shouting her name. I now know she was taking a walk to try to figure out the Ravenclaw door’s question but I don’t care if she was trying to hunt the Crumpled-Horn Snorcack in the hallways, because I was so relieved to find her there because she could help me talk sense into Neville. She saw how stressed I was and knew we needed to stop Neville from pulling one of his stupid stunts again.

            We ended up chasing him all the way down the stairs to the first floor until we made it to a side corridor by the Gargoyle statue where he stopped to catch his breath, and I could smell Firewhiskey on it. He looked around to make sure the coast was clear before he went up to the gargoyle and said _Wormwood_ and the statue moved so we could go up the staircase. I’d never been this way before but I know that this was the door to Dumbledore’s office, and it was now Snape’s. _The fuck are you doing?!_ Neville said he’d been sneaking around and waiting to overhear the password to the office for a week now. He said he heard Carrow say it as he and Snape were going there earlier today. We kept telling him to stop, what are we doing, we are going to get caught! He said he didn’t see Snape at dinner so he didn’t think he was here tonight, and I knew that was the worst reasoning but he was so fast and I don’t have the energy to fight with him and chase him and I know Luna is not a great runner either so all we could do was follow him.

            At the top of the staircase there’s a door and before he demolished it with a blasting charm Neville told us how he was thinking of doing this ever since the first night at Hagrid’s. He knew Harry needed the sword of Gryffindor and that it was in Snape’s office, and that he was going to steal the sword tonight and get it to him. We tried to tell him how that was a terrible idea, how he would get in so much trouble when he’s caught, how nobody even knows where Harry is or how to get the sword to him and it’s not necessarily the smallest item and easiest thing to steal.

            The office looked like what the potions classroom used to look like with disgusting jars of weird floating shit everywhere, except there was a wall of portraits of old headmasters who were all staring at us and there were weird silver instruments everywhere. The sword was behind the desk on a shelf in a glass case, and Neville used _diffindo_ to break it and climbed a bookcase to get up to reach the sword that he held up in the air and shouted _Fuck yeah!_ before going to run down the stairs and back to Gryffindor tower. The office was a complete mess and there was broken shit on the floor from the door and the glass case. We were hardly on the first step down when we heard _What do you think you’re doing?_ and Snape caught us.

            I have never felt my heart beating harder and faster than I felt at this moment, not on Harry’s birthday when we, well… or the first time Luna and I were in the Room of Requirement and I knew I knew what was happening to me. I think my mind went totally blank and numb and I couldn’t think about anything but how I needed us to be safe and Snape couldn’t know because if he could the Death Eaters could and You-Know-Who could and I know he can read minds. Would he dare do that then and read all our minds to know what was happening and I stared at the floor so we couldn’t lock eyes and maybe that means he can’t know.

            Neville froze and dropped the sword on the floor. He claims he’s not afraid of Snape anymore but at that moment I don’t know who wouldn’t be afraid of him. Snape turned around to the fireplace in his office, threw in some Floo Powder, and called McGonagall and Flitwick to come. It was probably only five or ten minutes before they came but it felt like forever. McGonagall was furious and so was Flitwick, and I’ve never seen him angry ever. Snape explained to them what happened but I don’t think he needed to because it was obvious once you saw the broken wood and glass on the floor and the sword out of the case. Neville was giggling and that was so damn inappropriate because to me it made it so obvious that he wasn’t being himself.

            McGonagall ordered the three of us to go to her office and wait for her there, and on my way out of the office I don’t know why but I turned around to look behind me and Snape and I locked eyes for a split second that seemed like forever. This was exactly what I knew couldn’t happen but it did, and I know I felt his eyes reading what was on my mind and I know he knows.

            Everything else after that is a complete blur. We went to McGonagall’s office and all I could feel was nausea and my entire body shivering from fear and not from cold. All that the professors said when they came back was that we are lucky we aren’t expelled, but we’re not allowed in Hogsmeade anymore, we have to do a detention to be decided, and we each lost two hundred points for our houses, which means that means Gryffindor is out four hundred points now. I would have once cared but I don’t care if the entire school hates me anymore. I don’t even want to talk to anyone other than Luna because she knows everything and when I’m with her that’s the only time I feel safe here anymore.

            I’m so fucking anxious it’s crazy because if I’m not thinking about this baby and that I’m only sixteen and it’ll be here before I’m even done with school, it’s how I can’t hide it forever and one way or another everybody is going to know and then they’ll know about Harry and how this is his secret too even if he doesn’t know it and because of that my life is in danger. And if it’s not that it’s Harry and my brother and Hermione who are off who knows where doing something really fucking dangerous. Or it’s the rest of my family who are the world’s biggest blood traitors and part of the Order and Bill and George have already been attacked and before I know it it could be much worse. And now on top of all this shit it’s Neville who’s always drunk or high or both all the time and pulling bullshit stunts like this that he thinks is defiance but is really just stupid.

 -------

_Snape_

            The headmaster would have closed the door behind the two professors as they left his office, were there still a door there. Instead he withdrew his wand, and with one flick of it wood shards on the floor magically rebuilt to become the door, back in its frame as if it were never blasted. Another flick of his wand and the glass shards on the floor reassembled into the glass case, back on its shelf, but now the sword it once held within still lay on the floor. With a pallid, bony hand the headmaster picked up the sword and placed it on the desk and the synthetic rubies glittered under the torchlight that illuminated the office.

            He had no qualms performing Legilimency on his pupils, and tonight he did it three times for the purpose of learning the motive, but now he not only knew the motive but he also knew a secret. A huge secret, one that he could easily sell to the Dark Lord, but he knew that as much as he might enjoy seeing the son of his enemy suffer, he also knew that he was her legacy, she whom he vowed to protect and whose death he vowed to avenge. And the girl, mouthy and rebellious, fiery as her red hair and outspoken for what she deemed right: he would have had no trouble with having her expelled, exposing the truth to the rest of the school for the sake of ridicule, just like he did to the werewolf over three years ago. He always hated students like her, the ones at the center of social circles, the ones who toyed around with boyfriends and lingered in corridors in the seconds before class for one final exchange of saliva. The very thought disgusted him, and simultaneously reminded him of his beloved toying around he whom he hated more than anyone else, nearly two decades previous.

            The girl who just left his office was nothing like her, could never be her, but the girl’s other half was his enemy’s double. His knowledge could destroy them both, and however much sadistic enjoyment he received from humiliating the students he disliked most, the tiniest inkling of morality that still existed in the very depths of his soul knew he couldn’t.

            There was one person he knew he needed to talk to: the wizard, euthanized at his hand, whose impression now sat intently, housed within a majestic golden frame on the wall opposite him. The headmaster flicked his wand and the impressions of his predecessors became deafened by a buzzing noise in their painted ears, all but he whom the headmaster sought to speak to. Another flick of the wand and the deafened predecessors were all blindfolded for good measure. He could not be overheard and he did not need any of them reading lips. He knew this room was not the only room the impressions could visit, and they were capable of sharing the conversation he intended to be completely private, even though he was the only living soul in the room.

            “Dumbledore,” he called.

            The former headmaster looked the present headmaster intently, drew a deep breath, and replied, “Severus.”

            The headmaster did not know where to begin. “I’m sure you’re well aware of the attempted burglary that just occurred in this very office.” His black eyes were cold and his visage remained emotionless.

            “Quite,” Dumbledore responded. He pushed his half-moon spectacles up the bridge of his nose.

            “Those fools did not realize their little stunt was in vain.”

            Dumbledore sighed; he so disliked hearing his successor refer to students as fools, but he knew that was a battle for another day. “Alas, they did not. I trust you have the real sword kept safely in your possession?”

            Severus nodded. “Of course.”

            “You must save it for Harry Potter to find at a moment he absolutely needs it, at a moment of bravery and valor. The sword must only come to him authentically, to a Gryffindor in time of need. He cannot know it is you who will give it to him.”

            The headmaster took a deep breath, “I know.”

            “You must wonder how I think you should deal with Mr. Longbottom and Misses Weasley and Lovegood.”

            A moment of silence flooded the office. Severus did not need to say anything.

            Dumbledore proceeded: “Do go easy on them. They were simply attempt to aid you in doing what you know needs to be done, even if they were misguided.”

            “They vandalized my office in the process.”

            “Only one vandalized your office, and I should trust you go easy on him, as you do with his two friends. They were only trying to prevent him from the whole attempt. You do forget that I saw the whole scene unfold.”

            “So do you think I am wrong in the punishment I have ordered for them?” Severus could hear his voice raising and feel his pulse rising.

            Dumbledore shook his head patiently. “I do not, but I would advise you to keep tonight’s events something between you, the students involved, and their heads of house. Write to notify their families, and do not allow the night’s events to become ammunition for the Carrows’ evil methods. If the past may dictate future events, confidential information does not remain secret for very long in this castle, but you must not make it a point to perpetuate this.”

            Severus was not happy to be told that he could not punish the obnoxious, rebellious brats, but instead to sweep their insolence under the metaphorical rug.

            Dumbledore read his expression: “I know your usual methods are more severe, but we are talking about the future of the entire Wizarding World. Remember you make these choices for the sake of Lily Evans’ son and allowing him to valquish her murderer.”

            He did it: he said the name that changed everything for Severus. It was a hard pill for him to swallow. “Of course.” A moment of silence, then he continued. “Speaking of Potter, his virtuous ex-girlfriend keeps her fragile mind even more open and vulnerable as he does.”

            Dumbledore could hear the derision in his snide statement. “Yes?” He folded his hands on his lap, waiting to hear what Severus had to say.

            “It seems that she is not as… virtuous and innocent as she appears. Let’s just say that she has been bringing some of Potter along with her everywhere she goes and this little problem is only going to get bigger.”

            He did not need to go on for Dumbledore to understand. His wizened face fell and Severus could see a sadness and pity in his face. “If the poor girl needed any more to worry about… How terribly, terribly scared she must be. I couldn’t imagine…” Dumbledore broke off.

            _Stupid brat got what she deserved_ Severus thought, unsure of how to respond.

            After a long pause Dumbledore continued. He appeared to know exactly what Severus was thinking, even though Severus was the best Occlumens he knew and always kept his mind walled off. “Do not make her a subject of ridicule. Miss Weasley has found herself a young person in a situation way over her head. Do not forget what it was like to be young and in love and the choices we might have made then that were not our wisest.”

            Severus took this as a personal offense. Dumbledore knew him in his youth, watched him spiral into the Dark Arts to the point he became the Dark Lord’s lapdog, and knew what he would do to protect the only woman he ever loved.

            “Do I send her home and let the Order protect her?” Severus asked.

            “How exactly do you expect to explain that to the staff, especially when the two newest appointments are Lord Voldemort’s servants?” Severus so disliked hearing Dumbledore call the Dark Lord by his name. “Her family is in danger as it is. The Ministry already suspects that her brother’s illness is a ruse. In any other world I would advise you to tell Minerva and allow her to help her decide what she wants to do, but not when the very fact she exists as she is right now, heavy with the burden of this secret and imminent danger, that you must ensure her safety beyond anything else.”

            “Would you like me to follow her to class and carry her books for her?” Snape responded snidely.

            “No, but do make sure nobody catches on. I do trust, or at least hope, she has found her confidences, perhaps the friends with whom she was caught in your office. You must make sure the rest of the staff does not know, most especially the Carrows. Confund them if you must. Do you understand that this information in the Death Eaters’ hands is a direct link to Harry Potter? They do not care whom they torture or slaughter. Look at the families they ruthlessly tear apart. The leak of this information is as good as a triple slaughter.”

            Snape understood. “This is not something that can be kept quiet forever.”

            “Alas, it is not,” Dumbledore responded. “However, you must try to let her stay in the castle for as long as she can. Let her have her autonomy for as long as possible. Only if and when it is absolutely necessary do I allow you to do the necessary steps to get her safely out of Hogwarts. Either way I doubt she will be back in the castle after Christmas, and then we must trust the Order’s protection. Do you understand?”

            “Yes, I understand.” Severus responded.

            “If that is it, I bid you goodnight.” Dumbledore bowed his head.

            Severus understood the conversation was over. A flick of his wand and the other portraits were relieved of their buzzing.

            He went to leave his office and return to his headmaster’s chambers.

            “Wait, you fool!” he heard a voice shout. “I still can’t see anything!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please, please, please let me know what you think about my change in perspective! I personally really enjoyed writing this part, might have been my favorite part to write thus far.
> 
> Also, I know I promised smut... don't you worry I'm definitely working more smut into the story!!! I just ask for your patience!!
> 
> xoxo Q_A


	6. Punished?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back to Ginny's POV. What happens after they're caught?

**_Thursday, 16 October 1997_ **

            When I walked into the Great Hall for breakfast this morning the hourglasses looked untouched, like we did not collectively lose six hundred points for Gryffindor and Ravenclaw last night. It was so weird, like last night didn’t happen. Nobody seemed to know about it either. Luna and I were anxious and whispering about it all morning, and every sudden noise at breakfast made me jump. Neville was really quiet and looked like death. He couldn’t keep his eyes open all the way, and there were dark bags under his eyes, and I was convinced he was going to fall asleep on his plate.

            All I can think about is how afraid I am that Snape knows and how much danger it puts me in. I told Luna what happened and she insists my heightened anxiety has made me more vulnerable to wrackspurts, which she says don’t just make your brain go fuzzy, but also can make you more anxious and cause you to think about the worse case scenario if you’re already anxious. I don’t believe her and it makes me so scared that she does not seem to care about what happened last night. She’s still her completely normal, totally weird, self. In any other situation I wouldn’t mind this, and actually really enjoy it, but bloody hell I could be tortured, captured, or _die_ as a result of this. She keeps saying it’s a good sign the hourglasses haven’t shown the lost house points yet, because that means that the professors don’t want the rest of the school to know, because such a huge loss of points would only cause rumors and questions.

            I was beyond surprised to learn that she was actually right about the house points. At lunch we both received letters that told us to go to McGonagall’s office after the end of classes today. We were expecting that Neville got the same note, but were shocked when we went to her office that he wasn’t there. Maybe he was running late?

            When we went into her office she closed the door behind us and she said that after careful consideration between herself, Flitwick and Snape, they have decided that “the incident that occurred last night is not one they want highly publicized around the school,” and also that she “learned from reliable sources” that the two of us were not directly involved in what happened. In other words, no house points will be taken because it would cause too many questions all over the school, and Neville did not seem to consider that the portraits of all the old headmasters on the wall can recall what happened. She wanted to hear our side of the story, because she insists that we were trying to “help our friend come to his senses.”

            I had no idea what to do in this moment. Should we rat out Neville as the one who’s been decorating the school under the influence of stolen alcohol and Wizard Weed? If we do that we don’t just get Neville in trouble, but there’s also Seamus and the Hufflepuffs who have been drinking and smoking too, not to mention growing the weed and distributing it to other students in the castle.

            I decided to answer as vaguely as possible, making it sound like we had no idea how Neville was drunk when we found him, and that he was inspired by whoever did the previous anti-Death Eater stunts. I could tell that McGonagall could read through my words, though. She said we were lucky to not be expelled, and she and the other two professors decided the best thing to do was to give us a detention and a warning that if something like this were to ever happen again we could expect detention every night for the rest of the year. We will be spending tomorrow night with Hagrid in the Forbidden Forest, which honestly is the easiest and most wonderful detention I can think of, but seeing McGonagall so angry and so concerned for our safety sent us the message loud and clear. She would be meeting with Neville after us, and I’m guessing that she wanted our take on what happened before she met with him. I hope he’s okay, but honestly at this point I wouldn’t be surprised if he showed up to the meeting high.

            After the meeting we agreed that we had to let Hagrid know what happened. He was probably aware of our detention, but we need to use tomorrow as an intervention for Neville, especially since it all started after the first time we were at Hagrid’s.

            We hoped he would be home when we got there, and not out trying to teach Grawp English, and we were so happy to find him home and making tea. He wanted to know what we were doing there, and we asked him if we could go inside. We didn’t waste time telling him why we were there. We told him about what happened the first night there, how Neville got drunk and he didn’t notice, how Neville did the painting on the wall, how Neville was helping grow Wizard Weed and seemed to always be drunk or high, about how he did the messages on the suits of armor, how he broke into Snape’s office to steal the sword and how we tried to stop him. How Neville has become impossible to talk to and he’s not the amazing friend we once had. How the Death Eater takeover in the castle and the war has caused him to become the worst possible Neville, and Hagrid was the only person we could think of to help us.

            Hagrid was so surprised to hear it, and it was so awkward to tell him how he didn’t realize Neville was drinking his brandy when he wasn’t looking. I could tell he felt guilty for drinking too much himself so he didn’t realize. He never expected this from Neville.

            We decided that tomorrow we would need to talk to Neville, to intervene and get him to stop. He doesn’t realize how much danger he’s putting himself into with all this crap he’s been doing. I have no idea how this is even going to go. If he doesn’t listen tomorrow we may as well just hand him over to the Death Eaters.

 

            **_Saturday, 18 October 1997_**

            It’s well past one in the morning and we just made it back from our detention with Hagrid. Luna and I arrived at his house just before eight o’clock when we had to be there. We sat on his couch and waited for Neville for a good twenty minutes before he showed up late. Hagrid invited him inside to sit down, and Neville’s eyes were bloodshot and he was very obviously high again.  

            Hagrid served us all tea, and Neville sat in a chair at the table and asked what we would be doing for detention. Without missing a beat Luna withdrew her wand, pointed it at Neville and used _surgito_. Suddenly his eyes weren’t bloodshot anymore and he lost his vacant expression. It was like he woke up. Later I learned that Luna looked up the spell in the library during lunch today and was prepared to use it if Neville came to detention drunk or high, like we predicted.

            Neville was so confused. He looked all around the room and blinked a few times, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

            Hagrid asked him “Does that feel any better?”

            All Neville could say was “What’s going on?”

            It was so awkward to explain to him what happened and I didn’t know how to start. Thankfully, Luna started talking to him. “Every time I’ve seen you for the past month it’s obvious you’ve been drinking or smoking that Wizard Weed crap and you don’t realize how terrible you become when you do it.”

            We went on to explain how his stunts in the castle were not as funny as he thought they were, how they could have gotten him in so much trouble with the Death Eaters who are _teaching in the goddamn castle!_ I told him, _they’re using the fucking Cruciatus Curse, they’re going to torture you if you keep up with this shit!_

            I said the magic word. Neville’s face fell when he heard the name of the curse that caused his parents’ insanity. He realized then how serious this was.

            Hagrid asked him why he has been doing this, spending all his time intoxicated and pulling crazy stunts.

            I could see tears in Neville’s eyes and saw one fall down his face while he explained how times were so rough, and he started it to escape how terrible everything was for a little while. How it started over the summer when he would steal his gran’s Firewhiskey. It was only a few times then, but when he did it he would forget the war for a few hours. And then when he got back to Hogwarts and saw Snape as headmaster and the Carrows, he wanted to be like Harry, to inspire the DA to come together and get rid of them like we did with Umbridge.

            Hagrid sighed and told him this isn’t how you fight a war. This isn’t how you stop what’s evil. This is not what Dumbledore would have wanted. Neville’s “bravery” wasn’t brave at all, but really quite stupid. What he thought would get rid of the Carrows and Snape only put a bigger target on his back. Neville was crying and apologizing like crazy and for the first time I could tell he was being genuine. Hagrid said that the staff decided to go easy on his punishment for our own protection, because if word got out, if the Carrows knew…

            We made Neville promise that he would stop everything. The drinking, the smoking, the stunts. If he didn’t stop I told him next time I was going to bat bogey the fuck out of him, and he’s seen what I’ve done to people with that hex. When he said he would stop I knew we had Neville back. It was my first real smile in a really long time.

            We sat at the table and drank our tea before Luna said something I could have never expected her to say, even if everything she says is unpredictable. “Just because we’re not going to draw pictures of Carrow facefucking You-Know-Who doesn’t mean we can’t find other ways to annoy him, his stupid sister, and Snape.” We might as well find ways to have fun and raise students’ spirits that aren’t outrageously stupid, and we brainstormed ways to do this: challenge their views in class, set off Fred’s and George’s products while they’re teaching, instead of doing offensive Muggle Studies papers, write papers about why Carrow’s wrong. It couldn’t have gone better and I actually find myself laughing with the ridiculous things Luna came up with.

            And then, after the fun part was over we had to do the stupid detention. Hagrid said he couldn’t let us go before we did something that might appear dreadful. We gave Fang a bath, bottle-fed the new baby unicorn, and sorted out the dead flobberworms from the live ones (Hagrid said we had to actually do something that looked like a punishment). None of us cared though, we knew we deserved it. Now that we had Neville back, we could talk and joke and it was just like DA meetings when we would say terrible things about Umbridge.

            A few hours later, Hagrid escorted us back to the castle and let us know he would be stopping the Friday night parties. He didn’t want them to become the cause for trouble in the castle, but said the three of us were welcome to visit him.

            One less thing to be stressed about feels really lovely.

 

**_Sunday, 19 October 1997_ **

            Luna, Neville, and I spent the afternoon at Hagrid’s again, which definitely could have gone much better. We wanted to talk, have fun, definitely procrastinate on homework, but when we got there Hagrid had a letter from home Mum told him to hand deliver to me, since the post is being watched. It was a red envelope, a Howler. I can’t say I wasn’t expecting it, but it’s definitely the last thing I wanted to open. At least I didn’t have to open it in the Great Hall in front of the whole school. Mum is furious and said things like “could have gotten yourself killed,” and that she “won’t forget and we’ll talk about it at Christmas.” As if I don’t already dread going home this year for Christmas and now this.

            After the horror of the Howler we sat around Hagrid’s table drinking tea and he told us what’s going on with the Ministry and the Order. It’s fucking terrifying to hear about more Muggle-borns who are forced into hiding or are losing their wands or killed just for their blood status. According to Hagrid, the lovely ex-Professor Umbridge is in charge of the bullshit. That woman is completely evil. Ted Tonks is on the run now because he never registered and the Ministry is after him, which is so scary and I’m so sad for Tonks and her mother and everybody in the Order. As for the rest of the Order, they’ve been holding quiet meetings, every time in a new location to keep from being caught or followed. From what it sounds like the Order hasn’t been trying any huge ways to take on the Death Eaters or You-Know-Who, especially with Dad and Kingsley who work in the Ministry that’s controlled by You-Know-Who. But also, even if Hagrid knew anything I don’t think he would tell us because I know Mum would kill him.

            Oh, and one more thing. Hagrid was so happy to tell us the good news that Tonks and Remus are having a baby, and that everyone in the Order is so happy for them. Even Hagrid couldn’t help but smile when he told us, even though we’re all so sad that Ted Tonks is on the run and is not around for Tonks and the baby, and we can only hope to end the war soon because it’s tearing apart families everywhere and we can only hope we will see Ted again soon. Hagrid says that Tonks’ and Remus’ new baby will be something happy to look forward to during such dark times, and I can’t help but be a little jealous and sad. She gets to share happy news, have everyone she loves celebrate with her. She has Remus by her side and the protection of the Order, while I’m alone at this Death Eater-infested school.

            During this part of the conversation Luna looked over to me and could tell that I was upset. It’s so hard for me to hold back tears now, and even if I were crying the news of Ted and all the Muggle borns is devastating. Luna told Hagrid that it was time for us to go and used all the homework we didn’t do yet as an excuse.

            After leaving Hagrid’s, Luna knew that I needed to talk to her in the Room of Requirement, and we parted from Neville by the library and lied to him that we were going to get homework done there. Once we were out of his sight we went to the Room and Luna let me cry and tell her everything that’s on my mind. She’s so good at listening and being there, I don’t know what I would do without her here.

            We stayed there until it was time to go down to dinner, and I laid in the bed and took a nap while she stayed up and did the Charms homework she will most likely let me copy off of her because I am too tired. During all this shit with Neville my adrenaline was keeping up and scared all the time, and now that it’s over all I feel is overwhelming exhaustion in every inch of my body. Luna had to basically drag me out of bed to get me up and to dinner, and I knew that I had to eat because I hardly have in the past few days. I almost fell asleep over my plate, and now it’s just past seven in the evening and I’m in bed for the night.   None of my homework is done and I don’t even care because Luna does let me copy everything off of her and I’ll just do that at breakfast and during break. I just hope that I’ll be able to get up and out of bed tomorrow morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I'm having so much fun writing this story, I prioritize writing it over things I should be doing :/
> 
> Smut coming soon, I promise!!!
> 
> xoxo Q_A


	7. Holy Room of Requirement!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ginny has a new problem and the Room of Requirement is there to help solve it

**_Thursday, 23 October 1997_ **

            Neville’s become his old self so quickly and it’s so nice to have my friend back. I’m not sure about the Hufflepuffs though, because I still see colorful smoke in the corridors, but Neville said he hasn’t smoked since we spoke to him and he takes care of his plants in the common room instead of the greenhouses now.

            I don’t feel sick anymore but something happened two nights ago that has me even more distracted from my work than usual. I woke up the other night from the strangest dream that I can’t get out of my mind. It was in a room I don’t recognize, maybe the Room of Requirement, maybe the dormitory, or some other made up dream place, but I was lying in a bed tortured by the most magnificent mouth between my legs. Soft lips kissing at mine down there, a tongue working its own kind of magic and I can feel myself become more wet and my insides are tightening and I’m twitching and moaning. My clit is pulsating like mad and despite the mouth having its way with me there I need more _friction_ I need _something_ to get me to that place. I’m crying out, begging for more, needing it, needing it to get me there.

            Fingers enter me as the mouth continues its work and they know where to go, what to do, like they’ve been there before. It’s so good I’m crying and pleading and my eyes are closed tight shut. My mind goes back to July when this all happened, before he left, before I knew. It was the first time I thought about that afternoon since it happened, rough hands from years of playing quidditch, lanky fingers so strong but gentle. He hadn’t pleased me like this last time, not with his mouth. Last time it was his birthday, all about him, all for him, and now…

            I scream out his name and it all stops. I prop myself up on my elbows and we lock eyes. Me and Luna.

            Merlin’s fucking pants!!! It was so shocking I woke up with my heart racing, pants soaked through. She’s my best friend, I’ve never thought about her, or any girl like that. Maybe it was just because we’ve been spending so much time together, that’s all. We spend almost all our time together, and she knows everything, she’s the only person I can talk to now. I love her but I can’t be _in love_ with her.

            Breakfast was so awkward. I couldn’t talk to her, couldn’t look at her. I couldn’t meet her eyes all day, not when the last time I met them she was down _there_ on me, even though it wasn’t real. I barely spoke to her all day, not in the corridors between classes, not at lunch or dinner, and instead of spending the evening in the Room of Requirement I went back to Gryffindor Tower. It was so strange, so lonely. And the entire time my mind couldn’t escape that dream, and I remember how it felt when she did that to me and I could feel my knickers get wet, the feeling that I needed friction, something. I couldn’t help but squirm in my seat during class and cross and uncross my legs, trying to get it to subside, even for a little while.

            Exactly the same the next day, awkward and silent, uncontrollable moisture. She asked if I felt okay and I said _yes_ , but I know she could tell it wasn’t true. I avoided her another night, spending it by myself in the Common Room. I went to bed early and lay in my bed with the curtains closed and tried to get some relief from the pulsing that never stops. My two fingers met my clit and began to rub, until I could hear footsteps, first year girls walking up to their dormitory talking so loudly. I could hear everything, every footstep, every opening and closing door. It wasn’t long until the girls in my dormitory came in, started to get ready for bed. They’re all so loud, going on and on about lessons and boys and Hogsmeade dates, the latest dress robe fashions. I couldn’t get relief here. I went to bed frustrated, lonely, sad.

            This morning was the same as the past two days, awkward and lonely at breakfast. I’m not thinking about Luna like _that_ but seeing her reminds me of it all and the need to do _something_ to satisfy it is overwhelming to the point I’m afraid I’ll leave behind a puddle when I get up from my seat. After another awkward day of classes she cornered me after our last lesson, Potions, and made me come with her to the Room of Requirement. She knows something’s wrong and that I’m not telling her. “What is it?” she asks me. “I’m not letting you leave until you tell me!”

            I’d never felt so nervous and nauseous since Snape caught us in his office. How do you tell your best friend you’ve been avoiding her because she was in your very realistic sex dream and ever since that you’ve been way too horny to function?

            I couldn’t even look at her so I stared at the floor instead. “You have to tell me. Is the nausea potion not working? Do your boobs hurt? Are you in any pain?”

            I shook my head.

            “What is it then? You look so uncomfortable lately. Do you need me to let out your skirt more? Are your shoes too tight?”

            I shook my head again. She held my hand in hers and insisted, “you _need_ to tell me, because I can tell you think you’re going through this all alone but you’re not, because I’m here with you and I’ve been going insane because you won’t tell me!”

            My heart started pounding even harder. I tried to take a deep breath to calm myself. Luna commented that she could tell I was nervous because she could feel my pulse in my wrist going so quickly.

            _You’re right. I’ve been kind of… uncomfortable… lately_. It was so hard for me to tell her. _I had a… dream the other night and ever since…_

            “Was it a sex dream?” she asked. I couldn’t believe she knew, but she knows everything and has no filter with everything she says. I couldn’t say anything so I just nodded. She gave me the most ridiculous smirk. “With Harry?” I shook my head. “With who then? Neville?” I shook my head again. “Me?”

            I froze where I was. “I was in your sex dream!” she was hysterical, nearly fell on the floor from laughing so hard. “How was I? Was I good?” she asked in the middle of all her laughter.

            I could feel my face burning up, probably beet red at this point. Once Luna calmed down she assured me, “It’s completely normal, and we’ve been spending so much time together it’s only natural I’d be in one of your dreams. I mean, you’ve been in mine plenty of times.”

            _What?! I have?_ She laughed again, “no I was only kidding, but if you were I’d imagine you’d be great! You’re not my type, but give me any of those sexy brothers of yours any day…”

            _Don’t you dare call my brothers… that!_ I nearly gagged hearing _my brothers_ and _sexy_ in the same sentence. She’d obviously never seen them smelly and muddy after playing backyard Quidditch or seen the disgusting way they eat, or seen a dirty pair of their knickers left on the bathroom floor.

            “Sorry, I can’t help it,” she was still giggling and winked at me. _I’ll fucking kill you_.

            “So let’s get back to your problem. You haven’t been talking to me because I make you too horny.” I rolled my eyes at her. _Not you specifically, no offense. But yes, very horny. All the time_.

            It was the first time found myself smiling at all this. She has this incredible ability to make anything amusing.  “First of all, I can’t help but be a little offended that you don’t want me. I mean, I’m a total catch.” She smiled. “And secondly, we need to find you a nice comfortable place to have an orgasm where nobody will walk in on you. We need a quiet room where you can jerk yourself off so you’re not so awkward to be around all the time.”

            No sooner did she say that than a door appeared inside the Room of Requirement. I turned to her. _Is this what you meant? To turn the Room of Requirement into a sex room?!_ “It was worth a shot,” she shrugged.

            We walked over to the door and opened it into the most outrageous room I’ve ever seen. Everything deep purple with emerald accents and lit exclusively by candlelight. Music playing from a magical gramophone in the corner. A giant circular bed, the largest bed I’ve ever seen, covered in about a dozen velvety pillows of different shapes and sizes. A washroom with a luxurious golden bathtub, big enough for at least three people, held up by golden claws and a spacious shower with a golden detachable shower head. And next to the bed, the best thing of all: a basket filled with objects I’ve never seen before, but I could tell what they were. Dildos, vibrators, and lubricating potion.

            I was surprised to learn that Luna knew exactly what all of these items were for. I’d never used one, never even thought of buying one, not when I had to hide it at home from the nosiest mother and all my brothers… not something I would want to accidentally leave lying around, and not something I ever had money to buy. But here, the room has provided me with all these toys, magically ready for me to use whenever I needed to, in a place only two of us know exists.

            She picked up a large magenta toy, smiling. “I know what this is. All you have to do is tell it what you want and it fucks you, so you don’t have to hold it or anything.” She held it out and said “on,” and it began to vibrate in her hand. When she said “faster” it began to vibrate even faster. She offered it to me and I held it. This thing was quite powerful.

            “That’s not even the coolest feature,” she explained, and said “fuck me” to it. The toy began to thrust in her hand. She said “harder” and the toy began to thrust harder. I smiled, only imagining what this would feel like. She pointed out the little ridges on the shaft of the toy and a little appendage sticking up that’s supposed to stimulate your clit. I was so excited to use this one. We examined all the toys in the basket, and she also pointed out tiny bullet vibrators, a small device that provides suction to your clit, and even one that mimics oral sex. All of them, like the first one, responded to your instruction. All you have to do is tell them what you want, and it’ll do the work. Upon closer inspection of the bathroom we also found a toy cleaner, and instructions for a spell that will completely sterilize your toys so they’re good as new. “So I can have a turn when you’re all done,” Luna winked at me again.

            The prospect of sharing sex toys with my best friend was kind of strange, but you can clean up everything with magic, making everything way cleaner and safer than Muggle soaps would ever make them. And we already share everything else with each other. Why not share the sex room?

            “I’ll just wait out here until you’re done,” she said, but I couldn’t relax if I knew that she was waiting there.

            She agreed to leave, but I had to let her know when I was done so she could come back. “Do you still have your DA galleon?” She asked, pulling hers out of her pocket. “You could use yours to let me know when I can come back.”

            It was somewhere in the bottom of my trunk, up in Gryffindor Tower. I would go find it afterwards and let her know I was done.

            “Have fun,” she said to me, smiling, as she went to leave. “Tell me all about it afterwards!”

            _Okay, okay, just get out!!!_ Knowing an orgasm was so close I could hardly keep talking to her.

            Once she left the Room of Requirement, I didn’t know what to start with first. I walked around the sex room, noticing new features I hadn’t the first time. I took off my shoes and felt how soft and plushy the thick carpet felt under my feet. I approached the candles and noticed how they smelled like something rosy and amortentia. There was a large unlit fireplace and I used _incendio_ to light it and bring warmth and the lovely smell of a burning fire to the room.

            Where to begin? I had all night. I could always sneak to the kitchens later for dinner. I decided to start with a shower. The last lesson we had was potions and I could still feel toad guts crusted under my nails.

            The shower had all these different knobs that turned on different colored water, all with different smells. The water fell from the ceiling like rainfall and sprayed from the sides as well. Colorful bubbles floated up as the water fell to the shower floor. I decided to use the pale pink water that smelled sweet, like fresh strawberries. I noticed that there was no lever to change the temperature of the shower, but when I stepped in I realized that it was the exact perfect temperature for me, hot, almost scalding hot enough to burn me, and I knew that when I got out of the shower my whole body would be bright pink. What a change from the sad shower stalls in Gryffindor Tower! The shower was lined with glass bottles with golden pumps, each filled with different soaps, shampoos, and conditioners. A magical razor sat on the ledge as well, just like the one Bill and Fleur got for Harry for his birthday. It was lovely to finally be able to shave my legs, because bending down to reach in the shower stalls, although I can still do it, it’s not the most comfortable feeling anymore. The razor shaved my legs and lower region perfectly, I could feel how smooth my legs were as the water from the shower dripped down from them. I chose pale pink soaps that smelled just like the shower water and began to clean myself. The soap lathered better than anything I’ve ever used before, and I could see gold shimmery bubbles appear on my skin.

            Once my body and hair were properly cleaned I finally got to what I had been waiting for. I picked up the removable shower head, something I’d only ever seen before when we went on holiday to Egypt a few years ago, and I didn’t know that I could do _this_ with it then. I turned the showerhead on and brought it down to spray against my clit. The hard pressure from the jet made me wild, and it was all I could do to stay standing upright as I moved the jet to torture myself just so. This wasn’t normal shower water, it was definitely enchanted, magical, and made my skin feel tingly, and it didn’t take long to feel the first of many orgasms coming on.

            I could have stayed in the shower all night but I knew that there were so many more things I wanted to do. I left the shower and was surprised to find a warm white fluffy bathrobe waiting for me. I was pleasantly surprised to find a large bottle of lotion and hairbrush on the marble bathroom sink. The towel was also enchanted with a drying charm, so it made my hair silky smooth and soft, a way my hair hadn’t felt since Hermione helped me style my hair with her collection of potions at the wedding.

            Once I was clean and dried and moisturized, it was finally time to move over to the bed for that amazing basket of toys. I couldn’t wait to use all of them, but tonight I had eyes for just one, that magenta vibrator Luna had first pointed out. I applied lubricating potion with my fingers and said _on_ and the toy started vibrating. I nervously untied my robe, laid back on all the pillows, and inserted it inside me. Bloody hell, it felt so good! I held it inside me for a minute so I could appreciate this new feeling, until I remembered that I didn’t need to hold it there. It felt weird to say _fuck me_ to an object, and even weirder to feel it actually fucking me on its own. _Yes! Harder, faster, more, fuck me harder, yes. Yes. Yes!!!_

            I lost count after maybe the seventh orgasm, and can barely bring words to what happened there, on that bed. Feeling myself tighten around the toy, the ridges making me squirm, making such a mess on the soft comforter that I’m surprised _tergeo_ could clean it all up. The way it vibrated against my clit and my whole body twitched. How there was no need to be quiet because I knew nobody would hear me.

            Much later, when I had finally had enough, I lay there on the bed, naked (at some point I took off the robe), and felt my heart beating and breathing return to normal. It was sad to clean myself and the room up to leave, but I know the room will be here for me whenever I need it. The walk back to Gryffindor Tower felt weird, as I passed other students who had no idea I had this incredible secret. I found my DA galleon buried in my trunk and sent Luna a message: _all yours, have fun!_ As for now, maybe a little nap will do me some good, then I’ll sneak down to the kitchens for dinner and consider getting homework done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been quite a while since I've posted! I've been nervous about writing/posting this chapter, but was so pleasantly surprised to find how easily this chapter wrote itself! Hope you enjoy! Also low key need my own Room of Requirement if you catch my drift...
> 
> xoxo   
> Q_A


	8. He knows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone else finds out.

**_Monday, 27 October 1997_ **

            Bloody hell, Room of Requirement! I could not be more thankful for its existence, and I spent most of the weekend there, enjoying enchanted bubble baths, trying out new toys, taking the most amazing naps in that giant bed. I would feel bad that I have hardly given Luna any time to enjoy the room, but she knows this is some of the only enjoyment I have now that my life is constant anxiety. Once I first scratched that itch I’d had for days since that dream, it seemed to make me want even more, like the floodgates opened and my cunt is always soaked and craving more, unable to concentrate for more than a few hours without needing to get myself off again.

            We did manage to spend some time in the other room, trying to get some homework done, and Luna is still amazing and brews all my potions for me. We used _hominem revelio_ on my tummy again to see how much bigger this little friend has become! We can see it moving around too, even though I can’t feel anything yet. What I do feel is so bloated and fat all the time now and my boobs have grown at least two sizes and feel heavy and uncomfortable all the time. Luna says I look hot though, because I have ridiculous cleavage like Muggle women on magazine covers, and says I’m still so skinny, even though I don’t feel it.

            I know it’s coming and it won’t be forever that I’ll be small and can hide it under my cloak. I’m terrified, not just because the school will know, and how in Merlin’s name am I supposed to look my professors in the face when I know they’ll just be staring at my tummy and thinking about how stupid and irresponsible I am, but also what happens when the Death Eaters find out? Will the Carrows give me right over to You-Know-Who? As much as I try to push these thoughts to the back of my mind they keep coming up and torturing me. I can’t hide like this forever, and it scares the shit out of me to think about the day this won’t work anymore.

 

**_Friday, 31 October 1997_ **

            After another terrible, long week of classes, I decided to make a solo trip over to the Room of Requirement for… you know… while Luna had her afternoon Herbology class and before the Halloween feast. I was feeling particularly cheeky, so used the DA galleon to send Luna a message: _Don’t come to the Room of Requirement._ I know I didn’t need to do it, because she would be in class, but I thought it was funny at the time to let my best friend know I was off masturbating while she was stuck in class. I’m such an idiot.

            I had just made it to the Room of Requirement, pussy dripping, ready for a good dozen orgasms, but on a whim took a second to check in _The Magical Midwife_ before I started. The baby is forming taste buds now. I can’t imagine how small they must be on the tiniest little tongue inside the tiniest little mouth I can imagine, especially when you think of how tiny its little body is right now, so little you can still hardly tell it’s in there by looking at me. I took a second to be in private with my baby, feel my tummy and try to tell if it’s gotten any bigger, imagine what it will feel like when I can feel it kick me from the inside.

            And then Neville came in. He was breathless like he had been running and threw open the Room of Requirement door. He shouted, “what’s going on is everything okay?!” and I quickly pulled my shirt back down over my tummy and threw _The Magical Midwife_ off to the side of the chair on the floor.

            _Bloody hell, Neville, the fuck are you doing here?!_

            He got the message from the DA galleon, he still keeps it in his school robes pocket. _It didn’t say_ come _to the Room of Requirement, it said_ don’t _come to the Room of Requirement, you idiot!_ He kept apologizing to me over and over again and I could see his face turning bright red. I needed him to leave soon, even though any desire for an orgasm had flown out the window as panic set in. He can’t know, I’m not ready for anyone to know. Once he saw that everything was fine he took a second to look around the room, at the small twin bed and big armchair I was sitting on, the books on the bookshelf, and potions simmering away.

            “What is this place?” he asked. He looked more and more confused by the second.

            _You know what this place is!_ “I know, but why is the room like _this_?”

            He walked over to me and picked up the book I threw to the floor. I felt like my lungs wouldn’t take any air, and felt my heart beating so loudly and quickly, I wouldn’t be surprised if he could also hear it. “Why were you reading this book?” He flipped through the pages and saw the diagrams of women’s bodies and babies. “Are you,” he was having trouble getting words out and I could see the redness on his face extend to his ears, “are you… is there… is this why you threw up in my plant?”

            This question was kind of funny, and I took a second to stop myself laughing before I got up from the chair and pointed my wand at him while he was still kneeling on the floor. As funny as I found his question, I was also so angry at him for barging in on me like that and terrified of his reaction. _If you fucking dare tell anybody Neville fucking Longbottom, I swear I’ll Bat Bogey hex you so bad your Gran won’t recognize you!!_ I could feel tears coming on.

            Neville looked like he was about to shit his pants. “I won’t,” his voice was small and scared and he was so obviously embarrassed. “But how did this…? When did this…?” He was obviously so lost for words, and instead of continuing to stutter he stood up and pulled me into the most sincere hug. “It’s okay, you’re okay, I promise.”

            He realized that what I needed wasn’t questions or judgment, but was just a friend to be there. I broke down completely as I hugged him back and started crying, and he held on as long as I needed him, rubbing my upper back the whole time. After a long time, minutes later, I finally broke away from him. He invited me to sit down on the chair with him, which I did, and only when I did did I realize that my legs were shaking. He offered me his hand, which I squeezed tightly in both of mine while my breathing calmed down. He then pushed my hair back away from my face and asked if this is why Luna and I have been spending so much time together.

            I nodded. _What did you think we were doing?_

            Neville didn’t respond but I could tell he felt awkward.

            I smiled. _You thought we were fucking, didn’t you?_

            He shook his head and gave me the most unconvincing “no.”

            I laughed in his face. _You definitely thought we were fucking, you just won’t admit it._

            He rolled his eyes at me, “just drop it, okay?”

            I did, but I still think it’s hilarious.

            He changed the subject, “Are you okay? Do you feel okay?” _I’m fine. Luna’s been brewing me potions_. And then, “Blimey, I’m so sorry I put you through all my bullshit. I’m so fucking sorry, you did not deserve that. I had no clue. I’m here for you now.” This time he was on the verge of tears. _It’s okay. Like you said, you didn’t know. This… this war is hard for all of us. And thank you._ I smiled at him.

            “I can’t imagine what it’s like for you, though. All this… keeping it secret… and I’ve decided to be so fucking stupid and get you involved. You’re amazing, you are.”

            _Me? Sixteen and knocked up by Undesirable Number One? Amazing._

            “Fucking hell! I didn’t know you and Harry were back together.” _We’re not. It was just once, over the summer._ “And he doesn’t know?” _No. I didn’t know until we were back at Hogwarts. And now there’s no way to tell him._

“So Luna’s the only one who knows now?” _Yeah. And now you too._

“Shit. What are you going to do when other people find out?”

            _They can’t. They literally can’t. Do you know what would happen if the Carrows or Snape knew? That’s a one-way ticket to You-Know-Who himself._

            “I didn’t even think of that.”

            The longest, most tense silence followed. I try as hard as I can to push these thoughts from my mind and once they do surface I lose myself to everything terrible that could possibly happen.

            “How much longer do you reckon you’ll be safe here?” _No clue. It’s well more than three months now. Probably only a few more weeks._

“Why don’t you tell someone in the Order? They can get you out of here.” _Could you imagine having to tell McGonagall? Plus, attendance at Hogwarts is mandatory. You know what my family had to do for Ron. They can’t do that for me too. And I don’t think I’ll ever be able to tell my family._

“Well, you told me.” _More like you figured it out_. “Still, the world didn’t end. I’m still right here. I still like you.” I could feel his hand squeeze mine tighter.

            “My parents are in St. Mungo’s now because You-Know-Who’s followers tortured them.” I had totally forgotten about this. “I can’t have that happen to you. They can’t have you and torture you or…” he looked down to my belly for the briefest moment before he caught himself staring and looked back up to my face.

            I felt the tears coming back up and nodded. _I know_.

            “You have me, don’t worry. And Luna. We won’t let anything happen to you here. And I’m going to get you out of here and somewhere safe soon, I promise.”

            I don’t think my eight-year-old self could ever imagine a day when I’d be so thankful to leave Hogwarts a second before I had to, but now every second I’m here is a second too long. Neville is totally right. His parents were tortured, they’re insane because of You-Know-Who. If the Death Eaters know, if they torture me, or Harry, because of this. I could end up in St. Mungo’s right alongside them, or Harry could, or we both could, or I could lose the baby, or we could all die. _Thank you_.

            “We’ll figure out a way to get you out. As soon as possible.”

            He was so reassuring and warm. Why didn’t I go to him sooner? He’s the non-red haired brother I never had.

            We sat in silence for a long time, me still terrified but strangely comforted by Neville, his kindness and warmth, his keeping cool in such a scary situation. He broke the silence, “Can you feel it?” _Not yet_. “That’s wild.” _It’s in there moving though. There’s a spell I can use to see it. Totally wild._

            What a change to have Neville back as a friend, not just because he isn’t drinking or smoking anymore, but because he knows now, and there are no more secrets. I knew from the moment he hugged me and told me everything would be okay that I was safe with him, and before I knew it we were laughing and joking like we used to.

            I didn’t even realize how much time had passed as we were talking, no secrets this time, until my stupid stomach gave the loudest growl and we realized that the Halloween feast was about to start. What a great time for a feast too, especially one that served everything this baby wanted. Chocolate and turkey at the same time, followed by ice cream, some peppermint toads, a double helping of green beans. Luna and Neville sat on either side of me and just laughed at how weird my meal was (Luna didn’t need to be told that Neville knew, she could sense it just by seeing how easy we talked to each other).

            After the feast the three of us went back to the Room of Requirement and were able to get along like we used to. Neville still hasn’t discovered the sex room off of the main room, and I really hope he doesn’t realize what that door leads to, because I think explaining that to him will be even worse than explaining that I’m pregnant. Even so, I know I can’t do this alone, and it feels nice to have another person I trust who knows. Neville and Luna might be total weirdoes, but they’re my weirdoes and I couldn’t ask for better friends.

 

**_Friday, 7 November 1997_ **

            Neville, Luna, and I have spent every evening this week in the Room of Requirement, trying to figure out how in Merlin’s name I’ll get out of this castle safely. I’m glad to know that the sex room disappears now when the three of us are in there. The Room must know that I don’t _need_ the sex room at that time, and honestly what I _need_ is to not die of embarrassment in front of Neville if he discovers how horny I’ve been. Hopefully my beloved sex room will be back and waiting for me next time I need it, but so long as there’s the issue of getting me out of the castle as quickly as possible, I can’t think of anything else. We think the best thing to do is get hold of someone outside the school in the Order, who can protect me and my family until the war ends. The three of us are all banned from Hogsmeade, so there’s no way I can contact anybody from there. All mail in and out of Hogwarts is being searched, so there’s no way I can send anything by letter, and the time two years ago when Harry snuck into Umbridge’s office and used her fireplace was disastrous. Then hers was the only fireplace not being watched, but I’ll bet that now every fireplace in the castle is being watched, and there’s no safe way of communicating with anybody without getting caught. Neville keeps saying that I should just go to McGonagall and tell her to send me home, but she’s not headmistress, I don’t know what she can do. What will happen to her when Snape or the Carrows ask where I’ve gone? None of us can think of a convincing excuse that will keep the Ministry at bay.  There’s no illness, no injury we can think of that will stop the questions. Too bad our family doesn’t have another ghoul, then I could have spattergroit too, but it only is so long that they will realize it’s a cover.

            We need to think of something soon, too, because just this morning when I was taking a shower, I realized that I’m starting to really grow. I still think I look like I just ate a big Christmas dinner, but I see the lower part of my belly starting to round more and more. I can still hide it under my robes, thank goodness, but I know I can’t do that forever. Luna offered to personally obliviate anyone who seems to catch on, but that’s so impractical. How would she ever be able to keep track of everybody in the whole school? Too bad they don’t make a Marauder’s Map that shows you what everybody in the castle is thinking, but then again I don’t know if I would want that knowledge.

 

**_Tuesday, 11 November 1997_ **

            Harry was in my dream for the first time last night since he left over the summer. We were outside in the orchard by the Burrow sitting on a blanket, like we were having a quiet summer picnic, and I was holding a pudgy, black-haired baby. I could feel the warmth from the little body against my chest, and I pressed my nose against the head, smelling the sweetest, most intoxicating smell, actually better than amortentia. I remember kissing the soft cheeks, feeling the smooth skin. My heart wanted to beat right out of my chest for the simple fact that I loved this baby so much, could not have enough cuddles or kisses, or could not breathe in enough of its smell.

            Harry said he had a present for the baby and had a new Firebolt and that he only wanted the best model for his son. He said he was going to teach the baby to fly. _He can’t even walk yet, you can’t teach him how to fly!_

            He took the baby away out of my hands and held him up on the broom that was floating in the air. “We have to start him young, he’s going to play for England one day!”

            I got up and tried to take the baby off the broom, but before I could Harry jumped on the broom behind him and flew away, shouting back to me, “He’s fine, he’s going to be a great Seeker!”

            I woke up after that much, heart pounding like it was real, and so full of emotion, because so much of it _did_ feel real. I’ve never so much as held a baby before, but it felt so natural and easy and real. The softness, the smell, the feeling that my heart was overwhelmed by how much it could love. Is this that mother’s intuition? A boy, a sweet pudgy little boy with black hair like Harry. I’d never let him ride a broom when he’s that little, and I’m sure Harry wouldn’t let a baby do that either, but that part of the dream aside, was this a vision of the baby?

            Luna said that there’s a spell she we can do that will let me know if it’s a boy or a girl, but I don’t want to know, because that means it’s real, it’s really happening. Sometimes I feel like I’m living nightmare, bringing a secret, innocent life in the worst possible circumstances, at least a decade before I think I’d actually consider wanting babies, hiding it from everybody, scared for both our lives. I can’t feel it yet, can only barely see it. As much as I hate to admit it sometimes I think I’ll wake up and none of it will have been real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I always love your kind comments, they literally make my day!
> 
> xoxo  
> Q_A


	9. Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: rape. I can't emphasize enough that this chapter comes with a trigger warning!!! Proceed at your own discretion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I first started this story I had no idea it would go to this dark place, but here I am and it has. You've been warned.
> 
> Another chapter that explores an outside perspective. Prepare to see more of this in subsequent chapters.

**_Sunday, 16 November 1997_ **

            Last night I was lying in bed, exhausted after another long day in the Room of Requirement with Luna and Neville. We spent the entire day there, only leaving for meals, trying to get through piles of homework. The Room has even provided us with a couch and coffee table now that Neville’s joined us, so we can all have a comfortable workspace. NEWT classes truly are nastily exhausting, and by the end of the evening my mind was spinning, trying to remember the exact definition of a substantive charm, and all the magical properties of knotweed and salamander blood. And on top of everything, the plan for my escape from the castle was in the back of all our minds, making everything tense.

            I closed my eyes and tried to take some deep breaths to help calm my mind so I could sleep when it happened. At first I thought that it was my stomach rumbling, but it felt gentle, almost friendly. A flutter, like the wings of the snitch in your hand after you catch it. And then it stopped, just as quickly as the snitch goes still.

            I could feel the tears coming up again when I realized what it was. Not my stomach, not _me_ , but _its_ little feet letting me know that it was real and existed. I placed my hands on my belly to see if I could feel it from the outside, but nothing.

            And for the first time the thoughts in my mind were not directed to me, but this tiny, real little human forming inside me. _I’m sorry, I’m so sorry I have to hide you, that I have no clue how I’ll get us out of this place. That you’ll enter this world while we’re at war and I’m so young and unprepared. That Harry doesn’t know about you, can’t know about you, I don’t know if he’ll ever know about you. I promise, I won’t let anyone hurt you. You’re safe, you’ll be safe. I promise. I promise._

_________

_Thursday, 20 November 1997. Evening._

            Her two friends had left about an hour ago, but she wanted to stay as late as she could, appreciating an intimate moment, mesmerized by the black shadow of the figure growing within. She has begun to feel the little feet poking at her more regularly, a feeling most welcome but also most horrifying. There wasn’t much more time now to remain hidden amongst the masses of students, somebody was to find out soon enough. And then… she didn’t want to think about that.

            Five minutes to curfew seemed about as late as she could manage before she knew it was time to go back to Gryffindor tower. There was still a Transfiguration essay to complete.

            She exited the secret room and made her way down the torch lit corridor lined with medieval tapestries and suits of armor, mind, as always, preoccupied.

            In another world she might have seen the poorly executed disillusionment charm, the two pairs malicious eyes that followed her as she passed.

            _Petrificus Totallis_. She fell to the floor, thankfully landing on her side. The pain in her hip was tremendous; she knew it would leave a terrible bruise. Contents of her school bag spread across the floor, ink from the broken jar quickly staining her possessions.

            “Look at this filthy Blood Traitor I’ve caught.” She couldn’t move to see the source of the voice, couldn’t talk back.

            “The fuck are you doing here so late?” This voice was deeper and rougher than the first.

            Were she able to talk she would have asked them the same question herself.

            “I caught her, so I get to have her first,” the first voice exclaimed. He walked around the immobilized form to examine her. Once he was in front of her she recognized her attacker: Vincent Crabbe.

            _Get me? The fuck does he mean he’s going to get me?_ She thought. She could feel the child inside of her squirm.

            He crouched down and traced the outline of her swollen breasts over her clothes. “I can’t wait to have a taste of these.”

            She felt tears pool up in her eyes. _No. No. No. This could not be happening._

            The other one, Goyle, called _mobilicorpus_ and she felt herself floating, being brought inside an empty classroom.

            “Thanks, mate.” Crabe said. “Watch the door. You can have your turn once I’ve had mine.”

            She was horrified. He’d know. _He’ll know and his best friend’s a Death Eater, and so is his dad._ It became impossible to breathe.

            The classroom was dark, unlit and had no windows. A dozen broken desks and chairs, teacher’s desk in the front of the classroom. The door slammed shut and it was quiet. She was laid on her back on the desk, still unable to move. He tore open her cloak and blouse with his rough hands, top three buttons popping off the garment, belly mercifully remaining covered. Again, he tore the bra down the middle, exposing her breasts. He squeezed them tightly with both hands, then proceeded to roughly suck and bite, no regard for the tears running down her face. “You like that, don’t you, you filthy blood traitor?” he growled.

            Tears streamed down her face and she could not respond. She knew this was it, this was the end.

            “And because you’re a filthy blood traitor,” he continued, “ _Crucio!_ ”

            Petrified, she writhed in pain, wished she could scream, wished she could move, something, anything, to relieve the pain. She thought of the baby, how could it survive the Cruciatus Curse?

            The pain lasted what seemed like an eternity, and when it finally let up he lifted his wand to torture her again. She wished she could scream, could cry out for help.

            Once he had his fill of torturing her he manipulated her frozen form so she was standing, now bent over the desk as his hulking form towered behind her. The sharp corner uncomfortably cut at her belly. She felt sick, feared what she knew was about to happen.

            He reached under her skirt and found the elastic waist of her panties. He roughly tugged at them, and she could feel the fabric tear against her hip that was now throbbing in pain from her fall. The panties fell around her ankles and his calloused hands explored under her skirt, grabbing at her ass cheeks, using his fingers to locate her traitorously moist core. Tears streamed down her cheeks faster as she felt him probe her with his fingers, it felt as though the jagged nails were tearing her apart. She felt herself being stretched open as he probed her with another, then a third finger. The pain was unbearable, and she would have breathed a sigh of relief when he pulled his hand away if she did not know what was going to happen next.

            The sound of a zipper, fiddling with fabric, and then the pain when he forced himself into her. She felt as though her body would rip down the middle in two. Her eyes, forced open from the spell, focused on a blank spot on the wall as he thrust into her again and again. She tried to breathe, focus on taking deep breaths until the pain was too much and she felt herself simply existing, accepting the fact that this pain, this violation wouldn’t stop.

            A thud from outside the room startled them both, and he paused for a second. A crash as the door burst open. _Stupefy_. The stunned Crabbe fell to the floor.

            “Ginny!” It was Neville. “ _Finite incantatum_.” She regained movement and leapt upon Neville, her savior, hugging him and pressing her sobbing face into his chest.

            “What are you doing here? How did you…?”

            “Never mind how I know.” He didn’t let her hold on long, though, as he put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her away, looking into her bloodshot eyes. “You need to get out of here, now. Go to McGonagall, she will get you out of the castle. Leave these two to me.”

            She opened her mouth to talk, but words wouldn’t come.

            “Go. Now. I’m not joking you need to _get out of here_.”

            Something changed in his eyes, a sense of sureness, a sense of knowing. “I… Okay. _Thank you_.” She quickly hugged him, then tried to hike up her panties that wouldn’t stay up because of the broken elastic. Ultimately, she ditched them there where she was, on the floor, wrapped her cloak around herself tightly to cover her exposed breasts, and ran away from Neville and Crabbe, past Goyle’s stunned form, the source of that first thud. Plans be damned, now was the time to get out.

 

 _______

_McGonagall_

            A late evening of grading OWL practice essays. She was just finishing up the ones from her final class when she was interrupted by a violent knock on her office door. Who would be calling on her at this time in the evening?

            She approached the door and cracked it open. The disheveled girl, torn clothing, messy hair, bloodshot eyes and tears streaming down her face. “ _Merlin’s beard!_ Miss Weasley?” She opened the door wider. “Come in.”

            The girl entered timidly, so different from her normal, confident self. But then again, McGonagall ruminated, she truly hasn’t been her normal, confident self this year. Was it the war? Her brother and friends on the run, no way of knowing if they were safe? Family under close Ministry scrutiny?

            “Who’s done this to you?” The girl tried to respond but no words would come out of her mouth, only tears and sobbing.

            “Never you mind, let’s get you out of these robes.” A wave of her wand and tartan pajamas and a plushy dressing gown appeared, which she handed to the girl. Another wave of her wand and a dressing screen appeared, giving the girl privacy to change.

            Once changed Ginny stepped out from behind the screen. “Have a seat,” the professor motioned to a chair in front of her desk.

            “My robes…” she began.

            “I’ll need to take them as evidence.” A wave of her wand and the dressing screen disappeared, clothing enveloped inside a purple drawstring bag. She produced another stiff-backed, austere wooden chair next to Ginny’s and sat down next to her. “You must tell me who did this to you. Was it a student?”

            Ginny nodded.

            “I have to know who it was.” Her voice wasn’t stern as it usually was, but soft and concerned. Her eyes were warm and compassionate, even though her mouth remained thin, lips pursed tight as they became when she was angry.

            Ginny made a choked, nearly inaudible noise.

            “I’m sorry?” McGonagall produced a handkerchief for her to catch her falling tears.

            Ginny accepted the cloth and wiped at her eyes. She took a deep breathe so she could force the name out. _C-C-Crabbe._

            McGonagall’s eyes widened and it was nearly impossible for her to hide her shock. “What happened? What did he do? Did he force himself upon you?”

            Ginny nodded. Now that she named her attacker she could begin to find her voice. The words came out of her mouth, unthinkingly, and she told her teacher everything, how she was walking back to Gryffindor Tower, how she was attacked by Crabbe and Goyle, exactly what they did to her: the Cruciatus Curse, the rape. “You have to get me out of here.”

            McGonagall tried her best to hold back her tears. “That’s much easier said than done under the new Ministry regime.”

            “The Death Eaters… the Carrows… Snape… You-Know-Who… they’re going to know and they’re going to…” she couldn’t finish her thought.

            “Know what? About this?”

            Ginny shook her head. “I’m in trouble,” she sobbed.

            McGonagall placed her hand on the girl’s shoulder, “You are absolutely in no trouble and not to blame for this, Miss Weasley. I’m bringing you over to the Hospital Wing, Madame Pomfrey will make sure you’re not badly injured, she will give you the necessary potions…”

            The girl protested, “No you don’t understand…”

            “What do I not understand?”

            “I’m in trouble because… because of Harry.” She choked out the final words, a new stream of tears falling from her eyes.

            “Potter? What does Potter have to do with any of this?”

            Ginny took a deep breath. Now was the time. It had to happen, she had to tell her. It was the only way to get to safety. “Over the summer we… and now… I’m not safe here if they know.”

            “What are you saying?”

            Ginny could only get one more word out. _Pregnant_.

            McGonagall’s eyes widened, her thin mouth fell open. “My god.”

            “You have to get me out of here, away from the Carrows, they’re Death Eaters. If they know…” Ginny pleaded.

            McGonagall collected herself. “You’re sure?” Ginny nodded. “I’ll send word to the Burrow. We’re getting you out now.” She had to hold back from reprimanding the girl for not telling her sooner, for putting herself in such a dangerous position. She herself had to remember what it was like to be sixteen, to be young, and on top of that the stress of war. She could not give herself time to appreciate the girl’s helpless state and knew that the best move for her safety was to get out of the castle. An alibi for her early dismissal could be arranged once the girl was better protected. With a flick of her wand her cat Patronus was off, giving Ginny’s family a warning.

            _Her family_. In a matter of a few hours they’d know everything.

            Another flick of her wand and a disillusionment charm was placed over Ginny. “Miss Weasley,” McGonagall said, “follow me, we’ll apparate from Hogsmeade.”

 _______

_Hogsmeade_

            Minerva McGonagall, dressed in a black traveling cloak and trying best to conceal her face passed the Shrieking Shack and made her way into Hogsmeade. The village was desolate; in happier times you might have heard happy voices coming from a bustling Three Broomsticks, but now everything was dark. Curtains were drawn in the windows, houses and shops were boarded up and abandoned. Wanted posters for Undesirable Number One were plastered on walls and lampposts. She kept her wand clutched tightly under her cloak if the Dementors decided to make their presence known.

            She made her way down a small alleyway to the grimy bar that was always deserted, the one that smelled like the goats she knew the bartender kept. This was the secret safe house for the Order, where Hogwarts staff came to apparate away from the castle. She and the bartender did not need to do more than simply nod to each other, he knew she was not in for a drink.

            She made her way to the second floor of the pub, into the first room to the left at the top of the stairs. Once inside she lifted the disillusionment charm on the girl, and her form was once more visible. McGonagall held out her left arm. “Have you ever traveled by side-along apparition?” The girl shook her head.

            “Hold on to my arm,” McGonagall instructed, and Ginny obeyed. A loud _crack_ and the two were gone.

 _______

_The Burrow_

            Molly Weasley had received the message and was nervously pacing in front of the Burrow as she had done that night in July as she waited to know her sons and husband would come home safely with the other Order members as they brought Harry Potter to safety. She had her clock clutched tightly in her arms, checking it every few seconds to see her daughter’s hand switch from _traveling_ to _home_.

            Finally the loud _crack_ and Ginny was home. Molly threw the clock to the ground and ran with open arms to hold her daughter. It was evident she was badly hurt, even in the moonlight.

            Once inside Molly invited her daughter’s teacher to take a seat in the sitting room. McGonagall sat in the armchair by the fire where Arthur would usually sit in the evening reading _The Daily Prophet_ (or, as of late, _The Quibbler_ ), while she and her daughter sat at opposite ends of the sofa, Ginny defensively curled up into a ball and hugging her knees.

            With a shaky wave of her wand Molly produced three cups of tea, one for each of them. She explained that Arthur wouldn’t be home that evening, that he was off with other members of the Order to find and bring Kingsley Shacklebolt, who had been on the run, to safety.

            “There’s no easy way to explain this,” McGonagall began. “But Hogwarts is no longer safe for Ginny anymore.”

            The tears fell quickly from Molly’s face. “What do you mean Hogwarts isn’t safe?”

            McGonagall proceeded lightly, “There was an incident tonight.” She looked over to Ginny. “Miss Weasley, would you like to explain?” This was not a demand or punishment for Ginny, as if she were being forced to tell her mother of her wrongdoing, but rather for her to have the autonomy to tell the story in her own words. She nodded and just as mechanically as she had described the events to her teacher did she describe them to her mother.

            As Ginny told her story tears fell more rapidly down her mother’s face, and she had to pause multiple times as she could not talk over her mother’s sobs and wails. It was all too much for Molly: her daughter tortured and raped in what was supposed to be the safest place in the world? She clung tightly to her daughter and kissed her repeatedly, so thankful she was alive and home.

            After a few minutes, once she regained more regular breathing she demanded, “And what about Crabbe? Is he expelled? And the other one? Merlin knows what I would do if I got my hands on them…”

            “That’s the issue, Molly,” McGonagall responded darkly, “attendance at Hogwarts is mandatory for all wizards and witches in Britain. There is no way I can throw them out of the school, especially when both of their fathers are known Death Eaters.”

            Molly was livid. “So we shame the victim instead, throw her out of the school?”

            “Molly, as I said, it is mandatory for Ginny to stay in school with this law in place. I am not bringing her to you to shame her as a victim, to give any merit to the thought that the incident was at all her fault. You see, there’s something else.” McGonagall turned to Ginny, “I can step away if you’d like.”

            Ginny nodded and thanked her teacher, who saw herself out the front door. Outside the Burrow McGonagall could hear muffled low voices, a prolonged awkward silence. Had she peeked through the window into the sitting room she would have seen Molly’s face go pale and fall, a look of pity and sadness, grief for her daughter’s loss of childhood, the tears as she took in the gravity of everything. She gave the two of them a solid half hour of tears and hugs and _don’t worry we’ll figure this out_ ’s and _thank goodness you’re okay, thank goodness you’re safe_ ’s.

            After a stretch of time she reentered the house, ready to discuss the plan, which plan’s details she hashed out as she waited.

            “Come tomorrow,” she began, “it will be obvious you’ve left the castle and we will need a proper excuse. I shall spread the story that Ronald’s spattergroit has worsened, that it’ll be a matter of days before he’s dead.” Molly let out a terrible wail.

            “I know,” McGonagall offered, understanding how terrible it was to tell a mother to stage her son’s death, “but it’s the only way this will work.”

            She continued, “I spread the story that you contacted me to tell me that Ronald’s spattergroit is worsening and that he will be dead in a few days, and that I let Ginny come home to say goodbye to her brother. During this time, you get your family together and you go into hiding under the Fidelius Charm. The Order has a number of safe houses…”

            Molly cut McGonagall off. “We’ll go to my Auntie Muriel’s. Arthur and I have had this planned for weeks. We knew it was a matter of time before the Ministry knew Ronald wasn’t really sick…”

            “It’s settled then,” McGonagall said. “I shall send Ginny’s belongings over the second I get back to the castle tonight. Gather the rest of your family together and first thing in the morning you get out. Would you like me to send the messages?”

            In her newfound grief Molly knew there was no way she could produce a proper Patronus. “Please.”

            “Very well then.” McGonagall stood up to leave. “With that I must go back to the castle before anybody knows I’m gone. Teachers aren’t supposed to leave their posts anymore.”

            “Professor?” Ginny stood up. “Would you thank Neville for me? Would you tell him and Luna where I’ve gone?”

            A look of sadness fell upon the professor’s face. “I’m sorry, Miss Weasley, but we can’t risk anybody knowing where you are, not even your closest friends. And as for Mr. Longbottom… I’m sure he knows without you needing to thank him.”

            Ginny nodded, tears welling up in her eyes as the reality of her isolation began to sink in. As McGonagall left she uttered a simple “good luck,” stepped out the front door, closed it behind her, and with a _crack_ she was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof. Definitely the toughest chapter for me to write. I'm so sorry, I hate that my mind/this story has gone here. What was intended as a sweeter, fluffy story has evolved into this dark slow burn.
> 
> I hope you're at least enjoying the ride?
> 
> xoxo   
> Q_A


	10. Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: Depression, PTSD, rape
> 
> Adjusting to a new life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The narrative changes multiple times in this chapter, between first and third person as well. I am not particularly one to subscribe to rules in my writing, and wrote from the perspective I saw most fit for the situation. William Faulkner's narrative style in As I Lay Dying was particularly inspirational in my writing, the way different voices understand and deal with tragedy and hardships. (And if you haven't read that book go and read it it's literally my favorite novel... apart from HP of course haha)

_Friday, 21 November 1997_

_The Burrow_

            She spent that whole night home crying, cuddled in her mother’s bed, Molly rubbing her daughter’s back and stroking her hair. Something she hadn’t done since she was ten and Ron had just left for Hogwarts and she was alone for the first time. She felt like a young child, unable to sleep by herself for fear of monsters, except now she was grown and pregnant, and the monsters weren’t imagined, but instead recurrent memories of everything that happened that night, the moral peril on her mother’s clock so palpable.

            Arthur came home early that next morning. Ginny couldn’t bring herself to tell him, had her mother do it for her; reliving everything twice the night before was too much. She hid on the landing on the stairs and listened. She had never seen her father cry before, but could tell he was from his voice. After a while he said, “She’s sixteen, she’s too young,” over and over again.

            Molly responded, “We were barely out of Hogwarts when we had Bill, and we did it.”

            “That’s completely different. We were out of school, we were _married_. We weren’t being hunted by the darkest wizard of our age.” The memory of the sound of her father’s sobs would be forever tattooed in her mind.

            “I know, but we’ll get through this, _as a family_ , like we always do. She’s home, she’s safe, she’s with us and the rest of the Order.”

            “And those Slytherin boys… when I get my hands on them…” She could hear her father’s anger as he broke into more tears.

            After a few quiet, tense minutes she couldn’t take anymore. She went downstairs, pretending she hadn’t just overheard everything. Arthur couldn’t find it in him to meet his daughter’s eyes. His glasses were on the side coffee table and his eyes were bloodshot. His clammy palm clutched his used handkerchief. He pulled her into a huge, crushing hug, and all she could say was _I’m sorry_ over and over. He repeated to everything Molly had said to him. “It’s okay, we’ll get through this as a family. Thank goodness you’re safe now,” yet it was mechanical, forced, like him saying the words enough times would make him actually feel it. She could sense his anger and disappointment.

            Packing the essentials was solitary and somber. Ginny unearthed the tiny denim shorts from her wardrobe, the ones Harry removed and lay discarded on the floor while they did the deed on her bed, in this very room. She doubted they’d pull up over her thighs now, remembered how tight they fit over the summer, how they barely covered her ass, perhaps the reason she chose to wear them that day.

            Back then her body was something she wanted to share, the best gift she could think to give the boy she was desperate to get close to since the first day she saw him in the crowd of King’s Cross Station. She tried to see through the smoke coming from the Hogwarts Express, peek through the windows to catch a glimpse of him while her mother waved goodbye to her brothers.

            That summer her body was hers, the thought of him touching and tasting using her as a means for his own pleasure was welcomed, desired. Now she couldn’t help but be horrified by her body, violated by the enemy. The thought of wanting to share her self with another was disdainful. She felt like an animal’s carcass, slaughtered, helpless to others tearing her apart, taking for them what once was hers. Just a week ago she could spend hours in the Room of Requirement pleasuring herself, and now those parts of her were off limits, out of bounds, untouchable. Never again could she not be horrified by those parts, remember how easily another could lay claim. And little did Crabbe know last night that another _had_ laid claim, the stake Harry inadvertently took on her evident had he just turned her around. She used to think of it as a welcome friend, feeling its presence a reminder of the ex boyfriend she still loved more than anything, and now it was a perversion of her privacy, a constant reminder that she did not own her body anymore. Any feelings of love mutated into feelings of resentment: for her growing breasts, the tiny swell of her tummy, the parasite within that put her in so much danger. She wished to be free from it all, for another life where she did not need to be hidden away, when she could test the powers of her juvenile magic to grow flowers in April from tiny buds and jump down from the high branches of trees as if in slow motion, somersaulting in the air and effortlessly sticking the landing. When her future meant a wand and Hogwarts, what she once thought was the best place in the whole world, the place she now tried to banish from her mind, as the thought of it caused palpitations and nausea. The future now was the nearly opaque smoke from the Hogwarts Express.

 

_________

_Andromeda_

            I got the message from Minerva’s Patronus early this morning. She would be coming over within the hour. Usually when she does this it’s to call on my daughter or Remus, but this time it’s for me. I myself am not part of the Order, and prefer to stay outside of all of this. Dora was just a child the last time the world was at war and my life then had been raising her. I could leave the fighting to the others. Ted was the same way too.

            Now my modest family home is a safe house: for me and Dora, safety from my sisters, a Death Eater and a Death Eater’s wife; for Remus a place to transform away from the Ministry. When I imagined these years of her life, Ted would be here. He left one night when I was sleeping, left a note that read _Don’t worry about me, I’ll be alright on my own. Stay strong. I love you and I love Dora and I’ll see the two of you again soon, Ted_. I imagined that I wouldn’t have to keep my daughter in hiding, that she would have her own house, family, and career.

            Minerva didn’t have much time, she had to get back to Hogwarts, and got right to the point. The Weasley girl, in danger. I am the only one who can ensure her care.

            I never lived for large, bold statements, but instead appreciated subtleties: a career in caring for witch mothers, bringing magical children into the world. My family cared so much for blood purity, keeping magic in the sacred family lines. To me, the _fuck you_ to the family that disowned me was making sure I helped as many women as possible have their magical babies. Pureblood women, Muggle-born, even the odd Muggle who married a wizard. Little miracles, created from just shy of nothing, humans that can grow and learn and think for themselves. How could my own family not see that? I doubt they ever bothered to learn what I decided to do with my life, but I don’t care. My work is fulfilling. I am constantly reminded of that from every letter or picture I receive from happy families, with their new magical additions.

            I have helped women through difficult times, performed abortions, sat with women who miscarried while they cried, yet this would be the most emotional. Teenager, brother rumored to be dead, in hiding, potential victim for You-Know-Who, tortured and raped by the son of a Death Eater.

            Her mother brought her over that afternoon. Our houses are both under the Fidelius charm and Apparition is the only safe way of travel now. She’s underage so has to be brought by someone else.

            She was timid little fawn on shaking legs. There were dark circles under her eyes and the sparkle of vitality was lost. I was reminded of images of individuals subjected to the Dementor’s Kiss.

            She wanted her privacy, we sent her mother away while I examined her in the home office. It was not the ideal place, but I can conjure an exam table easily enough. The girl did not want to undress, clutched on to the examination robe as tightly as she could to keep her covered. She tensed at every touch, flinched when I simply touched her hand, assured her she wouldn’t feel anything painful.

            The first concern was the baby. I have never seen a fetus subject to the Cruciatus Curse, and shutter to think of its effects. Never have I come across anything in any of my books: it was not a situation I would have ever expected to see. I drew my wand and pointed it to the girl’s abdomen. She flinched again. Heartbeat fine, everything checks out healthy. Tears continued to run down her cheeks. Babies are truly resilient and I could breathe a sigh of relief for that. She had been taking the appropriate potions, physically appeared in good health. It was a relief to know she had such a good friend at school, one who could properly brew such a tricky potion. I can send the girl home with more vials, a potion I regularly brew for my own daughter. I’ll just have to brew more now.

            She knew I had to do it, and cried when she finally had the courage to spread her legs, allow me to examine, make sure everything was healthy there. She cried harder, pulled her knees together as I began to examine her. She couldn’t bear to let me touch her. I sat her up, summoned a mug of hot chocolate from the kitchen. If it works for Dementor attacks it can work now. She sipped the drink slowly as we talked. I wouldn’t hurt her, I promise. She’s safe. I wouldn’t do anything that was unnecessary or dangerous. The fact of the matter is we have to make sure everything is okay there, no infections or diseases. Another large sip of hot chocolate, and some color returned to her pallid face. She took a deep breath and lay back down. I made it quick, I was heartbroken as she blinked back tears. It took every last bit of energy she had to keep still to allow me to do what I needed to do. As much as I try to separate my emotions from my work, sometimes it’s impossible.

            A physically healthy mom and baby. Best I could ask for in any circumstance.           

            I left, gave her privacy to change. Let Molly know her daughter was okay. She returned the news with what she could manage of a smile, worry lines deeply etched in her face, her gaze, hardened from the war, obviously fending back tears.

            I reminded the two of them the basics, make sure she’s eating healthy, take walks to exercise. I’ll pop by later in the week with more potion.

            I cried for a good while after they left, devastated for what this war has done to us all. My daughter and son-in-law, living with me for their own protection. I thought of my deranged sister Bellatrix, the reason for so much of my own family heartache. Last time I saw her was over twenty years ago, Dora wasn’t even a year old. An unwanted house call, guised as a visit from her and Narcissa to visit their niece, in reality Bella’s attempt to manipulate me, get me to leave Ted, join You-Know-Who.

            I still cry when I remember that duel. Dora crying, Cissy pleading with Bella to stop, trying to hold the baby back from any spells. Ted gone at work, my attention diverted between my sister and my daughter. A stunning spell to my belly. Me on the floor, passed out from hitting my head when I fell. A crying Dora, Ted not home for a few more hours. The healers at St. Mungo’s confirmed the spell hit my womb, that I wouldn’t be able to have more children. From that day on Dora was my whole life. It was hard to go back to work, helping women have their babies when I couldn’t. Never for a moment do I forget the destruction of war, what it does, how it devastates families.

 

 _______

_George_

            It’s been two long weeks at Muriel’s. I felt my stomach drop to the floor when Dad told Fred and I everything. We’re supposed to be there to protect our baby sister, _Hogwarts_ is supposed to be there to protect her.

            Fred and I try to spend all our time with her, trying to distract her from how shit everything is for even a few minutes a day. We play Wizard’s Chess or Exploding Snap in her room while she sits there on her bed, stares at the wall, forces smiles and laughter. She can only keep the façade up for a little while, and after an hour or so kicks us out, spends the majority of her time alone. The color has drained from her face. She’s pale, eyes always bloodshot from the crying she does when she’s by herself.

            Fred and I keep Muriel confounded at all times to keep her from asking too many questions, although she does still remark that my ears are lopsided from time to time. Mum and Dad don’t say anything about it, because they know it’s for the best. It’s hard enough for Ginny as it is without Muriel’s remarks in the mix. The only time they really see each other is at mealtimes, and Ginny hardly eats anymore. Manages a few forkfuls before she begins to play with the food on her plate, mushing it around until she can excuse herself from the table early.

            I can tell it’s affected Fred as well. When we’re in Ginny’s room here he constantly excuses himself and comes back to the room minutes later smelling like Muriel’s gin. He’s not nearly as funny as he was, no longer the first one to crack a joke, and instead becomes quiet and defensive. For the first time in my life I feel like I need a break from him, because he isn’t the Fred I know.

 

_______ 

_Saturday, 13 December 1997_

_Muriel’s_

 

            Nobody knew that she had stopped drinking the potions Andromeda sent, that the thought of food or drink utterly repulsed her, that she secretly flushed the potions down the toilet at night. She was weak and lethargic, slept for hours during the day, passed the time reading, or pretending to read, but instead would stare blankly at the pages while her mind wandered, always back to that last night at Hogwarts. Otherwise she would sit up on her bed and try to catch glimpses of her belly twitching from the baby’s movement.

            Her mind was at war. On the one hand she hated herself, her body that she could not longer call her own. She was alien to herself, flesh in places it had never before existed. Toned arms obscured by flesh, the muscles themselves atrophied from her lethargy. Dimpled cellulite on the hips and thighs. The bruises were gone but she still refused to touch herself in those places, they weren’t hers.

            On the other hand, deeper than any feelings of resentment, she loved this baby, cried in happiness when she learned it was safe. She reveled in the time she spent by herself, now she could feel and see the kicking more regularly. Her hands found home cradling the small bump that now protruded.

            She knew what she should be doing, knew she needed to eat and take her potions, get up and move around, but found all these prospects nearly impossible. It had been three days since she bothered to have a shower, well over a week since she washed her hair, which she kept tied back in a greasy, tangled knot. She could smell herself, her sheets were moist from perspiration and desperately needed a wash, but that meant getting up and doing something. Her life had come to a full stop, everything was on hiatus so long as she was here and hidden, so long as war raged on.

            Molly and Arthur were hardly home, always out working for the Order, or otherwise existed in silence. The home Ginny had grown up in, loud and chaotic, was no more. When they were home her father sat in the sitting room armchair, reading _The Daily Prophet_ , or more often, like his daughter, stared blankly at the pages while his mind wandered. Her mother found new cleaning projects every day, had taken to polishing Muriel’s Goblin-made silverware for the third time since they’d all arrived. Nobody talked to each other, nothing more than a muttered “good morning” over coffee, contrived, artificial conversations at dinner.

            This evening the family sat at the dining room table, candlelight illuminating the mauve walls and tablecloth in an orangey glow. Muriel, now constantly confounded, was convinced it was the morning, and demanded to take her breakfast in bed. For the first time the table was completely quiet, no absurd stories from Muriel of the time she was the star act in a traveling French circus, trained a hippogriff to fly through rings of fire. Ginny painstakingly cut each roast potato wedge into twenty little pieces before contemplating putting some food in her mouth, but she knew that she must, keep up the illusion she was caring for herself.

            It was halfway through dinner. She felt weak, malnourished despite the full plate of food that sat before her, her fingers felt numb and tingly. With clumsy fingers she went to pick up her knife, begin cutting into the chicken on her plate, when the knife fell to the floor from her shaking fingers. She pushed her chair back from the table, bent down to pick up the knife, when the rush of movement caused her to see black spots. She fell from her chair onto the floor, hitting her left shoulder on the descent, lay on the floor on her left side, thankfully not on her belly.

            Her parents and brothers automatically rushed to her on the dining room floor. Ginny was wearing her fluffy magenta dressing gown she always wore now, which her mother untied, perhaps she fainted because she was too warm. That’s when they all saw what she tried so hard to hide.

            Other than her belly she was all angles. The lean athletic body was now limp and atrophied, her collarbones and sternum overly prominent from what her tank top exposed of her chest. Her face was pallid, something not as noticeable in the evening with orangey candles lighting the dining room, and whole body felt clammy. Molly placed her two fingers just below her daughter’s ear. There was a pulse.

            Arthur was standing, pacing the room, glasses clutched in his left hand, his right one wiping sweat from his brow. He turned to his sons.

            “Boys,” his voice was strained and fighting back tears, “go get word to Andromeda. Have her come here, _now_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM SO SORRY it's taken me so long to get this chapter posted. It was a really difficult headspace to get myself into when writing, especially bringing out my own demons from my own experience with depression. Also, I just started A NEW JOB that's been taking up basically all of my life (it's a teaching job. Yes, this crazy messed up mind is allowed to teach our youth. I have over 150 students. It's great and it's exhausting. I promise I've only taught some of them about witchcraft.)
> 
> That being said, it might take me a little bit longer to post new chapters. I am not abandoning this work though! I love it too much and I've put too much into it to let it go.
> 
> Thanks for being along for the ride and I can't wait to share the rest of this story with you!
> 
> xoxo Q_A


	11. Healing

_Andromeda, same day_

            I was there within two minutes of the Weasley twins telling me there was something wrong. It was just enough time for me to grab the vials I might need.

            She was on the living room floor, her head in her mother’s lap, her father desperately clutching her hand. I cast a quick spell, _Ennervate_. Her eyes fluttered and she started to stir. Molly and I helped her sit up. I uncorked the Pepperup Potion and brought it to her lips. Color automatically returned to her face. Arthur and I helped her up and lead her to the couch in the sitting room, helped her lie down.

            I use my wand to check her vials. Blood pressure is very low, she’s anemic. I draw a vial of the prenatal potion and tell her to drink. Molly recalls everything that happened, how she bent down to pick up the knife she dropped, how she fainted.

            “Has she been eating much? Taking her potion?” I asked Molly.

            “I bring her the potion every day.”

            I turned to Ginny, “And you’re taking it every day?”

            Tears welled up in her eyes, “I haven’t had much of an appetite.”

            “What does that mean? If you’re taking the potion every day your iron wouldn’t be so low. The color in your face…”

            The girl shook her head, “I haven’t been taking the potion.”

            She was crying. Molly shouted, “ _Ginny!_ ” as though to scold her, but her cry remained untouched in the palpable air as she realized that her daughter needed help and not reprimanding.

            “I need you to drink this now,” I said to her, offering the vial. She accepted it with a shaky hand and allowed the potion to touch her lips. She began to dry heave upon tasting it. I could see how tortured she was when trying to get the potion down, her body wanted to reject it. It does not taste pleasant, I will agree with that. I summoned the ingredients from the kitchen, with a flick of my wand they created a chocolate milkshake, mixed the potion into it, and I conjured a large glass to contain it.

            I offered the milkshake to her. “Try this, the chocolate hides the flavor pretty well.” She took a sip. It seemed to agree with her system and she gave a faint smile. “Better?” I asked and she nodded. “Good. Drink up, now, come on, you need to finish this.”

            I turned to Molly. “She hasn’t been eating full meals?”

            Molly shook her head. “I figured it was just food aversions, that it would pass in time. She’s been through so much, she needs her rest.”

            I could see Molly was about to cry. “Ginny’s not the only patient we have to worry about here.” I looked to Ginny, “Are you feeling any better? I need you to drink all of that. You need all the calories you can get.”

            The whole room could sigh relief as Ginny propped herself up to a more comfortable sitting position on the couch and drank down the remaining milkshake. “Yes, I’m feeling better,” she said.

            “Thank goodness for that. Shall I ask everyone to leave the room so we can check on baby?”

            She turned to Molly, “can you stay?” she asked, and I saw the terrified little girl who needed her mother.

 _______

_Just outside the sitting room_

            Arthur paced the kitchen. He, Fred, and George had been asked to leave the room. The boys leaned against countertops, staring blankly, unable to say anything. Arthur used his handkerchief to wipe his brow.

            Everything was still, quiet, and tense. Until, very faintly they could hear the noise from the sitting room. A quick pulsing sound. A heartbeat.

            All this time Arthur had tried to push the situation to the back of his mind, threw himself into any work for the Order he could do to keep his mind distracted. As he frequently missed dinner because of his work, there would be days at a time he wouldn’t even see his daughter, as she spent so much time in her room. He knew the gravity of the situation, how she needed to escape Hogwarts in the middle of the night to secretly and safely carry out her pregnancy. Up until now he couldn’t think past his daughter in trouble, in a predicament way over her head, someone who needed to be hidden and kept away lest she become You-Know-Who’s next victim. He hadn’t taken the second to consider the new life. That she carried a small human that would be here in a matter of months. The heartbeat meant life and hope, the glimmer of happiness in this complicated mess of a situation. He imagined the day in a few short months from now when he could hold the little baby in his arms, the joy of the baby’s sweet smell, the toothless, gummy smiles and giggles.

            Fred turned to his father and could see him trying to discreetly dab his eyes. He put a hand on his father’s shoulder, “Congrats, Granddad,” he said. Arthur scrunched his eyes shut and let tears fall, while he nodded, the closest he could get to saying thanks.

 _______

_Back to the pages of Ginny’s diary, that evening_

            I didn’t realize how dangerous what I was doing was until I fainted. I’m drinking the rest of the Pepperup Potion Andromeda gave to me and I’m feeling more energy than I have felt in a while. Heartbeat is fine, still strong as ever. Andromeda did _Hominem Revelio_ and said the baby’s measuring a little small. She said it’s nothing to worry about, it’s still fine but just on the smaller side, but I can’t help but feel guilty that I haven’t been taking care of this baby properly. I know I’m too young, that I should be worrying about NEWT classes and studying, but now that I have this baby I can’t imagine life without it even though it’s not even here yet. I know I love it and I know I’ll fight with my life for it, but I also know that every time I let my mind wander I still go back to that last night in the castle and I freeze, cry and shut down. I can’t be like this anymore, not when I endangered my own life and my baby’s life, but it’s so hard to pick myself up and be brave and do what I have to do when these memories keep coming back up.

            When I tried to drink that smoothie I felt so sick, my body has been unable to take in any nourishment, I felt my heart beating up in my throat. After the first sip I forced down I felt the baby kick and I realized that it was the first time all day I felt it and I couldn’t remember if I had felt it at all yesterday. I’ve felt it moving around ever since I finished that milkshake. I think he likes chocolate. Andromeda said the most important thing right now is me getting enough calories, and told me I could have ice cream three times a day if I need to.

            After she was done examining me and everything she left, but told me she was coming back in a few days to make sure everything was okay. I sat in the sitting room with Mum, Dad, Fred, and George. I sat on the couch and ate a giant bowl of ice cream and we all talked for hours like we did during the summer, before the wedding, before everything went crazy.

            It was awkward at first, trying to make conversation when we have all been so distant from each other, when all previous interactions were so forced. Dad told us about what’s been going on with the Order. Nothing new, Kingsley’s back from being on the run, they’re trying to find Ted Tonks. Other than that it’s keeping a low profile, everything’s becoming so dangerous.

            I know we’re all safe here under the Fidelius Charm, but I can’t help but worry all the time, especially now that I’m stuck here for at least four more months it’s lonely and I miss my friends I don’t know what I’ll do to stop myself from going mad.

 _______

**_Wednesday, 17 December 1997_ **

            Andromeda came by today to make sure I’m okay and everything and I was so surprised to see Tonks and Lupin with her. It wasn’t until I saw them that I realized I hadn’t seen them since the wedding and I can hardly believe it, especially since I’ve been over to Andromeda’s a few times since I left Hogwarts. After she checked on me, made sure everything was okay, Tonks came into the sitting room to have a word with me.

            I had imagined how happy and glowing she must be, as she’s of age and married, expecting a baby with her husband who lives with her, who she gets to see every day. I was surprised to see she looked as exhausted and worn as I felt. Her hair was still magenta, but I could see lines on her face and bags under her eyes I hadn’t before.

            She pulled me into a huge, emotional hug. “How are you doing, sweetie?” she asked.

            _I’m fine_.

            She exclaimed how I looked so tiny compared to her. I don’t agree, I feel massive.

            “And it’s just going to get worse,” she sighed. “I can’t wait for this to be _over_ , I miss working.”

            Talking to her felt so good. As well as we get along, I know she’s always seen me as a child, as she’s so much older, but here we are on the same page. Pregnant, forced into hiding for our safety and our babies’ safety, family and those we love also in danger. She’s promised to stop by more often since she doesn’t need anyone to bring her here with side-along apparition, and I can tell she’s lonely and restless too. Her father is on the run, hasn’t had any contact with anyone, the Order hasn’t been able to find him, and I can sense her anxiety. This past weekend was a full moon so she didn’t have Remus, and otherwise her life is talking to Remus and Andromeda, and maybe Kingsley when he decides to drop by.

            After a while, Remus came inside. He gave me an awkward hug, as if he wanted to pull me into a proper one but didn’t know whether it was appropriate. He looked exhausted, the worst I’ve ever seen him after his transformation. “I’m so sorry,” he said, “about everything I know you’ve gone through.” His words were genuine. “I wish there were a way for me to help you forget all those horrors, to move on without that pain.”

            I could feel myself begin to cry, again. I explained to him, even if there were a spell or a potion that would make me forget, I don’t think I’d want to take it. I need to be stronger than all of that. He agreed, that my words were well said.

            He reached into a pocket inside of his cloak. “I have a present for you. It’s not much, but I figured it might cheer you up.” It was a bar of Honeydukes chocolate, one with little pieces of marshmallow inside.

            “I heard you liked chocolate,” he said as I opened the wrapper and took my first bite. I nodded. “Me too,” he responded. “This flavor is one of my favorites.”

            _Do you just always have chocolate with you?_ I remembered how when he was at Hogwarts he always had chocolate to give to Harry during his Patronus lessons.

            “He has a whole collection,” Tonks said. “I think I’m going to be in trouble because baby’s been wanting all of it.”

            He smiled. “Let’s just say I’m a werewolf who has more of a taste for chocolate than for flesh.” I now can’t stop imagining him as a wolf, eating his way through a box of chocolate frogs instead of real ones.

            Mum popped in to offer us some tea before lunch, when Tonks decided to get up and help her with getting lunch ready. She hit her leg against the coffee table on her way up, and she was the same Tonks, clumsy as ever. I was about to get up and help, too when Lupin stopped me for a private word.

            “I’m going to tell you something now,” he said, “and you have to promise not to tell anyone about this.”

            He looked stressed and tired. Whatever he was going to tell me was going to be difficult. I had no idea what to expect. _Okay._

            He took a deep breath and started, “when I first found out that Tonks was pregnant, I was so afraid. I wanted to run away… I _did_ run away.” He took a second to take another breath before continuing. “I went to Harry, wanted to see if he would let me, help him and your brother and Hermione on their mission.”

            _What?_ I couldn’t believe it.

            Lupin kept talking, like if he stopped he wouldn’t be able to continue. “He wouldn’t let me. He was furious that I would abandon my child.” A tear streamed down his face.

            _Remus—_

“I’ve never seen him so angry… Livid… Couldn’t believe that anyone could ever abandon their child.” Now I was starting to cry. “He’d be so proud of you and your bravery through all of this. I know, _I know_ , that if he knew he would be right here with you.”

            I nodded, tears streaming down my face. “You know you’re not alone,” he continued. “I know you must feel that way. I remember having to hide and lie when I would transform at Hogwarts until I met my friends. I wanted to let you know that you don’t have to do this by yourself, and you have so many people here who are protecting you and care about you and are here to do anything we can to help.”

            The only thing I could say was _Thank you._

            “This is my best friend’s grandchild and grandchild’s mother we’re talking about. _Grandchild_. Merlin’s fucking beard, I’m old.”

            I laughed. _You’re not! I’m just really young and stupid_.

            He became serious, “Never say that you’re stupid for one second. Things happen for a reason and life gives us all different challenges. Could you ever imagine how in the middle of a war we now have two babies to look forward to? You’re giving us _hope_ , something greater to fight for, a better life, a safer world for our children.”

            I never thought of it this way. Hope for the future, hope for a safer world for my child. The day when I can give him one last hug and kiss before he gets on the Hogwarts Express, to go to school where he can learn with Muggle-born and Pureblood friends and not have to fear You-Know-Who or Death Eaters.

            Hours later after lunch, after they all left, I still can’t believe that conversation with Lupin. He and Tonks are as terrified as I am. Harry would be proud, would be here if he could. I know Lupin can’t speak for him, but I can’t help but think he’s right. If he just knew he would be here and would be doing so much but if he knew he wouldn’t be saving the world, and even though he doesn’t know it he’s out there saving the world for his child and the hope of a better future.

 _______

**_Wednesday, 24 December 1997_ **

            We just got word from Bill this morning that he and Fleur won’t be joining us for Christmas. Mum was angry at first, but now that she likes Fleur she understands that she and Bill want to spend their first Christmas together. Hopefully Errol will find his way to their place to bring them their gifts.

            I still haven’t seen Bill since the summer and he doesn’t know anything that’s happened to me since. Mum and Dad agree that we need to tell him here in person, and he hasn’t been able to get around for whatever reason. I miss him. He’s always good to talk to.

            Andromeda, Tonks, and Lupin came to dinner this evening. After dinner when everybody but Tonks and me were drinking wine, Kingsley came over. It was the first time I had seen him since the summer. Dad and Lupin met him outside the door and told him everything so he knew and wasn’t surprised when he saw me. We have all decided it’s safest to only tell people in person and if we have to. And now that Kingsley’s back from being on the run and can come back to help the Order he can know.

            Well into the night when everybody had had a good amount of wine they got to talking about Harry. I felt so awkward and my heart jumped when I heard his name.

            Nobody knows where he is, or Ron or Hermione. We all agree at this point that no news is good news, because the only information the Ministry would release would be if something terrible happened. Kingsley said things have become hopeless, as nobody knows what exactly is going on and You-Know-Who has taken over the Ministry.

            That’s when Fred mentioned what he and George have been working on in secret. At first it was a way to contact Lee Jordan without being detected or using owls. A quick trip to their room and they brought out an old wireless, which they enchanted with a secret password, and only those with the password could tune in and communicate. What if they used it to broadcast a show that’ll inspire hope during the war?

            After much discussion they decided to use secret names because Mum was so scared they’d get caught. Like the DA meetings, the show would be on different days at different times and you need a password to access it. They could talk about the Order and how fucked the Ministry is and everything. They’ll do the first show tomorrow night, password “Phoenix.” In the meantime, Remus and Kingsley will spread the word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry it's been a minute since I've last posted. End of the school year, submitting grades, and whatnot. Please do forgive me. Now that I'm home, not working, and recovering from an injury I have plenty of time to commit to this work. 
> 
> I do hope you're still enjoying the ride!
> 
> xoxo,  
> Q_A


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